Page 1149 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 2 April 2019
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something, receive it back, have further back and forth discussion, and then agree on a position. At that point we would be able to distribute the amendments. To have done that in a matter of hours following the presentation would have been impossible.
The Canberra Liberals believe that financial prudence and best practice are required in the ACT. That is why, whilst we oppose what the government is putting forward, we have some amendments that we think will at least make it marginally better. We hope that leave will be granted for us to consider those amendments and that they will be supported.
I wish to reiterate once more that the Canberra Liberals have real concerns with this financial discretion that the Assembly will be giving the Treasurer. The legislation, as it stands, gives wide discretion to the government, to the Chief Minister and Treasurer, to spend from future years’ budgets without clear reasons. The government has provided insufficient evidence and insufficient time for us to be convinced otherwise. I hope the Assembly will support my amendments, which will at least try to make this bad legislation marginally better.
MS LE COUTEUR (Murrumbidgee) (11.37): The Greens will be supporting this bill and will not be supporting Mr Coe’s amendments, for reasons I will outline later. However, I will say that I support Mr Coe’s comments about the impossibility of meeting the scrutiny requirements, given the timing. This is something that we need to seriously look at. Obviously, we have no problems with the amendments being moved, despite the lack of scrutiny. The procedure was clearly impossible.
Going to the bill, the Greens’ general view is that we support legislation that helps the public service to do their work more efficiently as long as it does not impact on our key values, such as social justice, environmental sustainability and, most particularly in terms of this legislation, government transparency. We are satisfied that the bill does not have a negative impact of that type.
I will be voting against the amendments for the following reasons. I will go through Mr Coe’s comments. The first amendment is to delay commencement to 1 July 2019. I can see Mr Coe’s logic for commencement at the beginning of the 2019-20 financial year, and in an ideal world that undoubtedly would have been the case. Unfortunately, or fortunately, the budget is released in May, and the new capital reserve needs to be in that document. So I see the rationale for the timing.
Amendment 2 aims to insert additional reporting to the Assembly on the traditional Treasurer’s advances. We all know that there is already substantial reporting of the details of Treasurer’s advances. We have all sat here and listened to it. I do not think that Mr Coe’s amendment is going to add any useful information to the existing reporting on Treasury advances.
Amendment 3 aims to expand reporting to the Assembly on the new capital works advances by adding the reporting of reductions to advances as well as the advances themselves. It is my belief, my understanding, that this is already covered by the bill. Amendment 4 aims to expand the details included in reporting to the Assembly on the new capital works advances. Again, it is my belief and understanding that this is
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