Page 2858 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 11 October 2022

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this is not a massive deviation from the practice of estimates committees, so I was not overwhelmed or shocked by the lack of any recommendations around how one might pay for all of the new proposed expenditure.

In summary, the government have agreed to 18 of the 143 recommendations. We
have agreed in principle to 15 of the 143 recommendations. We have agreed in part
to three. We have acknowledged that the recommendation was in fact already part
of existing government policy in response to 45 of the 143 recommendations. To
the extent that government responses can meet requests for additional outcomes through existing resources, it would appear this might be possible within 45 of the 143 recommendations. We have noted 60 recommendations and provided a response for the reasons why. And we have not agreed to only two recommendations.

Mr Parton: They would be mine, I think. They would be mine, I reckon.

MR BARR: Not that we would condone a betting market, Mr Parton, on which opposition inspired recommendations were or were not agreed to.

In conclusion, through the 143 recommendations there are none, nor indeed any issues raised within the estimates committee report, that would prevent the passage of the Appropriation Bill or the funding for the Office of the Legislative Assembly through the Appropriation (Office of the Legislative Assembly) Bill.

I am pleased to present the government’s response to the Assembly and to foreshadow that it is the government’s intention, as I am sure members would be aware, to commence the budget debate tomorrow, with an expectation that that would carry on into the second sitting week, to give all members of the Assembly sufficient time to debate the detail of the budget and then perhaps to give Mr Gentleman more ammunition in question time when the inevitable vote against the budget comes from those opposite. But that is a matter for the future. For now, I commend the government response to the estimates committee report to the Assembly.

Debate (on motion by Mr Gentleman) adjourned to the next sitting.

Crime—sentencing

MR HANSON (Murrumbidgee) (3.24): I move:

That this Assembly:

(1) notes that:

(a) the Australian Federal Police Association has called for a review into sentencing and bail and has described the Territory’s sentencing and bail processes as “fundamentally flawed and dangerously inadequate”;

(b) victims of crime and their families have called for a review of sentencing and bail and have said, “the Attorney-General is still in denial we have systemic problems with the justice system”;

(c) Government backbenchers have called for a review into sentencing and stated that, “I do also support your call for a review of sentencing in the


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