Page 5599 - Week 15 - Wednesday, 9 December 2009
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The FMA requires that I, as Treasurer, prepare a budget review and present it to the Legislative Assembly on or before 15 February. It is true that it does not stipulate the period of time for which the financial data must be collected. I note that over the last six years there have been two instances when the budget review was released earlier than February.
Allow me to contrast that approach with that of another jurisdiction whose legislation mirrors closely what Mr Smyth has proposed in his bill—Tasmania. I will quote from the Tasmanian government’s consolidated midyear financial report:
Due to the impact of the global financial crisis on the Australian and Tasmanian economies, the Government presented the [Mid-Year] Report in two parts. This [Consolidated] Report presents the full requirements for a half-yearly report. It combines the information contained in the 2008-09 Mid Year Financial Report (Preliminary) and 2008-09 Mid Year Financial Report (31 December Outcome).
This means that, due to the prescriptive nature of its legislation, the Tasmanian government effectively provided two budget updates and its usual half-year financial report. The first report informed the community of the impact of the GFC; the second informed the community about the six-monthly outcome; and the third report was published to consolidate the other two so that they satisfied the requirements of the legislation. That was the outcome of such prescriptive legislation and was an enormous burden, I would imagine, for a small jurisdiction.
I would also like just briefly to canvas what happens in other jurisdictions, to partly go to the point or perhaps an error in Mr Smyth’s presentation speech on 18 November. Mr Smyth suggested that what the ACT does is out of the ordinary. In fact, the opposite is true. There is no single or uniform approach by jurisdictions as to how and when a budget update or review should be undertaken. Some jurisdictions do not have a legislated requirement to undertake a budget update or review, as is the case in South Australia and Queensland. In his presentation speech on 18 November, Mr Smyth stated:
In Victoria there is a requirement for each midyear report to present fairly the financial position of the state at midnight on 31 December.
However, I note that, in fact, on 26 November, the Victorian Treasurer released the 2009-10 budget update. How could this be? If Mr Smyth had ever read that document or the Victorian legislation, he would have known that the Victorian government is required to produce a mid-cycle review of its annual budget. Its budget update provides revised estimated financial statements relative to the budget published the previous May, including the projected outcome for the end of the current financial year and revised estimates for the forward years.
What was Mr Smyth quoting from regarding the requirement for a midyear report? If he had checked the Victorian legislation, he would have seen that the midyear report is in fact the Victorian equivalent of our regular financial outcome report to the end of December. Yes, the report was called the midyear report but it was not their budget update for the financial year.
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