Page 1150 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 2 April 2019
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already covered by the bill. The bill uses the same wording for the new advance as the existing legislation does for the Treasurer’s advances.
As I have already said, I believe that the existing reporting for the Treasurer’s advances covers all that is needed in that reporting. Thus I will be supporting the bill but not the amendments.
MR BARR (Kurrajong—Chief Minister, Treasurer, Minister for Social Inclusion and Equality, Minister for Tourism and Special Events and Minister for Trade, Industry and Investment) (11.40), in reply: I thank members for their comments in relation to the legislation. The government have a new $3 billion pipeline of capital works underway, and we are committed to delivering this in the most efficient and effective way possible.
As our city grows, we understand that it is very important for the government to step up our investment in new hospitals, schools, transport and community infrastructure in order to keep delivering high quality services for Canberrans. That is what we have been doing over successive budgets for a number of years now, and that is what we will continue to do into the future.
This bill facilitates an effective and efficient program of infrastructure delivery by amending the Financial Management Act 1996 to establish a capital delivery reserve. The reserve provides a mechanism for improving the accuracy of budget estimates and the performance of the territory’s capital works program. It will allow agencies to access their capital funding allocation from future years if they can get projects built faster, by requesting a capital works advance from the reserve. This will reduce the need for agencies to build a delivery contingency into their year-by-year project estimates. It will improve the accuracy of forecast costs and our overall allocation of the infrastructure budget.
An annual appropriation will be made to the reserve, set at a maximum of 20 per cent of the total amount appropriated for the capital works program for the financial year. This will be available for agencies to draw down on as needed, with any amount that is undisbursed lapsing at the end of the year. In requesting a capital works advance in the current budget year, an agency will be required to make an offsetting reduction from its budgeted forward estimates to ensure that projects remain within their budgets over time.
This amendment bill also includes mechanisms that provide very strong accountability to this place, requiring the reporting of all capital works advances from the reserve to the Assembly via the quarterly financial statements required under section 26 of the Financial Management Act. This accountability provision is in addition to the requirement under section 30F of the Financial Management Act for the Treasurer to provide the Legislative Assembly with a report on the capital works program at least every six months.
The bill will significantly improve the budgeting practices associated with ongoing management of the government’s capital works program, while providing agencies with the cash flow flexibility to get on with building the significant new infrastructure
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