Page 2574 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 7 August 2013
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
With respect to the Select Committee on Estimates, the report was passed by the committee and tabled in this place yesterday. It was a committee that had two Labor and two Liberal members on it, so it was a bipartisan committee. Both sides were there equally, and the report got up. The recommendation says:
… that the Budget not be passed because of its lack of delivery, high levels of deficit and deceitful plan to massively increase commercial and residential rates.
The other appropriate recommendation is:
… the Appropriation Bill debate not be brought on until such time as the Treasurer has presented an amended bill and relevant budget documents detailing the effect of the ICRC determination on the ACTEW Water dividend and balance sheet.
It does raise the question as to why we do not have those numbers. It is a question that, according to the Treasurer, can only be answered probably by February next year. For those who saw the ACTEW statement of corporate intent tabled in this place yesterday, on page 19 there is a big, glaring red box—warning!—which states:
These forecasts are based upon assumptions made by ACTEW prior to the ICRC’s release of its final report for regulated water and sewerage services in the ACT on 26 June 2013. The likely impact of that report has not yet been fully determined. The key financial measures set forth in the following sections are subject to material change once the impact of the ICRC report has been determined. It is anticipated that ACTEW will provide revised financial forecasts in late August 2013.
If it is to be revised in late August 2013, let us put off this debate for a month. The government has got supply. The rules are quite clear. You can continue to spend. The normal tradition is five-twelfths of the previous year’s budget. So there is no impediment to the government starting anything it wants to do or carrying on with what it has been doing. But we are being asked to pass something that we know to be inaccurate, and no member should be asked to do that. We are being asked to pass something when we will get the final determination a week and a half after we pass the debate. Why would we be asked to do that?
It is curious. The ICRC’s draft report came out in February. So between February and June—let us say two months; February, March, April—ACTEW were able to do all the work, all the computation, all the argument with the ICRC that they needed to do to convince the ICRC not to go ahead with the large decreases, to stop the price gouging on water and sewerage, not to go ahead with that because there was a risk of ACTEW becoming insolvent. So they were able to do that work in quick time so that the ICRC then had time to discuss it with them and rewrite their report. They were able to do that in a couple of months. But since June—so June, July, August—they cannot do the same work as quickly so that we can have an informed debate on the budget. Why is that?
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video