Page 1371 - Week 05 - Thursday, 18 June 2020
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Mrs Dunne: There was a bill that everyone was ready to debate. You could have done that to fill in the time.
MR BARR: What I am doing now, because there was mass confusion in the chamber, is being very clear that, on the advice of the Clerk that it would be cleaner and easier, rather than my moving an amendment to my own motion while Ms Lawder’s amendment was before the Assembly, to deal with Ms Lawder’s amendment we are not voting for that but we will vote for the amendment that Mr Gentleman has circulated. I hope that that clarifies the situation for members. I will stop speaking now. Ms Lawder can close the debate on her own amendment.
MS LAWDER (Brindabella) (4.34): I am of course disappointed that the government will not be supporting my amendment. When I introduced it earlier, I spoke about how it was quite straightforward and would have encouraged openness and transparency at a time when there is no budget. It would have given everyone the opportunity to understand what was proposed.
Given that we have been quite supportive, constructive and positive about many of the approaches that the government has proposed—in fact, we proposed many of them ourselves, which the government then adopted—I do not think it would have been a stretch too far for the government to agree to these three simple points after its initial three. We were not trying to disagree with the original three points of Mr Barr’s motion; we were merely seeking to add additional scrutiny, additional transparency and additional accountability to what was already there. So I am disappointed that, as Mr Barr has flagged, they will not be supporting my amendment today.
MR RATTENBURY (Kurrajong) (4.35): I do not particularly want to get into whose amendment should be passed or not. I think it is about the content. Whilst I hear Ms Lawder’s frustration, I think that Mr Gentleman’s amendment is quite useful. It sets out some quite specific dates. It is very useful both for this place and for the public, for anyone who may care to look at it. It is quite explicit and transparent about what the steps are going to be, particularly noting the fact that the government will release its economic and financial update by 27 August, which will provide that account.
It also notes that there will be the normal pre-election budget update which is produced by the Under Treasurer during the caretaker period so that all the parties can see the open books. It is a really important part of where democracy has got to in Australia that this has become a feature of Australian elections—these pre-election budget updates so that the community and all the political parties can see what the state of the books is. Parties can finalise their costings and their election commitments in the context of having a clear line of sight on the state of the budget. Then they can make their judgement about how hard they do or do not want to go on savings, spending or whatever the thing will be.
We will be supporting Mr Gentleman’s amendment, not because we have a problem with Ms Lawder’s but because it has taken the next step in spelling out a series of quite explicit moments that are coming in the next couple of months in terms of the
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