Page 1111 - Week 03 - Thursday, 18 March 2010
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Paragraph 2 agreed to.
Sitting suspended from 12.19 to 2 pm.
Ministerial arrangements
MR STANHOPE (Ginninderra—Chief Minister, Minister for Transport, Minister for Territory and Municipal Services, Minister for Business and Economic Development, Minister for Land and Property Services, Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs and Minister for the Arts and Heritage): Mr Speaker, just to confirm, as I said, the Attorney-General, Mr Corbell, regrets that he is unable to attend question time today. If there are questions that members had proposed to ask of the Attorney-General in any of his portfolio capacities, I will seek to be of assistance. I will do my best, but if I cannot provide answers today, I will take them on notice.
Questions without notice
Small business—payment of invoices
MR SESELJA: My question is to the Treasurer, and it relates to small business confidence in the ACT government. Treasurer, the Greens-Labor agreement, in section 7.3, requires that all ACT government agencies pay invoices for small business within 30 days. Treasurer, in responses to questions on notice which state that up to 20 per cent of invoices are paid late, you indicated that ACT government financial systems do not allow agencies to distinguish which invoices relate to small businesses. Given this lack of detail, do you have any idea if this requirement of the agreement is being met?
Mr Hargreaves: On a point of order, Mr Speaker, I would ask for your ruling on whether or not the agreement between the Greens and the Labor Party falls within the portfolio of any minister.
Mr Seselja: Mr Speaker, as it relates to small business and answers to questions on notice, it absolutely does.
Mr Hargreaves: On the point of order, Mr Speaker, Mr Seselja referred specifically on two occasions in his question to the relationship between the subject and the Greens-Labor agreement. If it is to do with the portfolio, I have no objection, but on that, I think it is a problem.
MR SPEAKER: Thank you, Mr Hargreaves. Mr Seselja, perhaps you could just reframe your question.
Mr Seselja: I am not quite sure which part—
MR SPEAKER: You cannot ask about the Labor-Greens parliamentary agreement but the rest of your question is broadly valid. Perhaps you could just reframe it slightly.
Mr Smyth: The Treasurer is the minister responsible for liaison.
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