Page 3837 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 30 November 2021

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Trustee and Guardian are not administering the Chief Minister’s Charitable Fund. The Public Trustee and Guardian already have experience in administering a not-for-profit fund at low cost; I speak of GreaterGood, the Capital Region Community Foundation. It is a puzzle to me. I believe that this Assembly needs an answer to this in clear terms. What is the expense of running the Chief Minister’s Charitable Trust, compared to the expense if it were being run by the Public Trustee and Guardian?

Proposed expenditure agreed to.

Independent Competition and Regulatory Commission—Part 1.22—proposed expenditure agreed to.

Total Appropriated to Territory entities—proposed expenditure agreed to.

Treasurer’s Advance—Part 1.23—proposed expenditure agreed to.

Capital Works Reserve—Part 1.24—proposed expenditure agreed to.

Total appropriations—proposed expenditure agreed to.

Clauses 1 to 10, by leave, taken together and agreed to.

Title.

MR BARR (Kurrajong—Chief Minister, Treasurer, Minister for Climate Action, Minister for Economic Development and Minister for Tourism) (11.41): This is the last speaking opportunity before the bill is put to the vote; so I take the opportunity to thank members for their contribution to the budget debate, to again thank the various standing committees for their reports into the appropriation bill and to acknowledge the significant work undertaken in preparing the budget each year by officials within ACT Treasury and across the ACT public service.

I particularly want to acknowledge my office and the team within the office who manage the budget process each year. I single out Faheem Khan for special mention. Two budgets in one year is a very significant workload. And I would not wish that we had to have two budgets again in a calendar year, as it obviously has consumed months and months and months of very detailed deliberations in an extremely uncertain economic and public health environment.

I indicated in my remarks earlier in the detail debate that I would seek to provide the Assembly with up-to-date information on the territory’s economic recovery. It is indeed very pleasing that yesterday Standard & Poor’s reaffirmed the territory’s AAA credit rating. We are the only state or territory left in the commonwealth with that highest possible credit rating. And it was pleasing to see the territory maintain that rating following this budget.

The economic position of the territory has improved since the tabling of the budget. The fiscal position of the government has improved since the tabling of the budget. These two things are somewhat linked. It is pleasing also to see a national economic


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