Page 2782 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 23 June 2009
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The Committee enquired about the breakdown of funding for land management purposes and was advised that programs were still being prioritised within TAMS. The Committee questioned why such detail was not available.
Other members have spoken about these sorts of problems. The funding for weed and pest control is a classic case in point of only being given half the story about what is being spent and on what. While specific and new funding was allocated for rabbit control programs for Mount Majura and Mount Ainslie and articulated in the budget papers, it is clear from some comprehensive answers to questions on notice that were provided by the department that the management of weeds and pests is broad based and ongoing. Yet despite information being provided on the nature of the programs, no breakdown of the proposed funding for the year ahead was given. I appreciate that the minister gave a commitment to provide this breakdown. I look forward to him keeping the Assembly informed.
Before I move on, I would like briefly to reflect on comments I made earlier about the arboretum and its effectiveness as a climate change program, and also mention that the same concerns apply to the urban forests renewal program. So I am pleased that recommendation 69 from the estimates committee addresses this issue and make the same points as I made earlier about the pitfalls of a government that seeks to dress programs up as a climate program and sell them to the community as a climate solution when, in fact, (a) they are not and (b) they were going to happen anyway. Once again, I look forward to the cost-benefit analysis from the government on the effectiveness of this as a mitigation measure and to seeing the carbon sequestration report which hopefully will be tabled very soon.
I would like now to comment on one specific sport and recreation element from the TAMS budget, and it relates to the Brumbies funding. This has been a matter of some considerable public discussion. During estimates, I asked about the loss of sponsorship by the Brumbies and the minister took on notice at the time to provide the information on how much was cash and how much was in-kind support. I think that was one of those that it was fair enough to take on notice, and I appreciate the response we got from the minister; it was very clear. With respect to the ISC sponsorship arrangement with the Brumbies, the answer from the minister was as follows:
The original ISC contract for 2009 included cash of $347,750 and $245,000 of ‘in kind’ support. The revised deal negotiated with the new ISC company for 2009 is $150,000 in cash and $170,000 of ‘in kind’ support.
I have done the maths on this and what this shows is that the funding in both forms coming from ISC to the Brumbies has gone from $592,750 down to $320,000—that is, a loss of $272,750 in sponsorship.
What I would like to put on the table, and I would invite the minister to give a clarification to the Assembly on, is that the ACT government provided $720,000 to the Brumbies. I am willing to accept that I might have missed the point here, but there is a significant gap between $272,000, as indicated in the answer to the question on notice, and the $720,000 that the minister spoke about in estimates and in the various
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