Page 415 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 27 June 1989
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understand that the indications are that there are still three months to go, but I would submit that most of his comments were irrelevant to the Supply Bill.
I also noted his error in assuming that this Supply Bill related to a five-month period. In fact, the explanatory notes that came with it indicate that it is for a six-month period. It is to some of those matters that I want to address myself today. I do not want to get into the detail of the Supply Bill, but I would reiterate Mr Collaery's undertaking that the Supply Bill will not be delayed or deferred by the Opposition.
The Supply Bill has only one purpose, and that is to ensure that until the budget is brought down, whenever that may be, the Administration has money available to it to carry on the business of government. It has no other purpose than that.
Given that that is the purpose of it, my first comment is that I am surprised at the fact that the Bill is for a six-month period. It is my understanding that the present indications are that the Government intends to bring down its budget in September. Traditionally, in government budgeting, when you know what your budget cycle is, when you know when your budget is going to be brought down, you provide sufficient allocation of money through your Supply Bill to keep the business of government going until the budget is brought down. Administratively, once the budget is brought down, there is a delay until the Treasurer can issue his warrant so that money is actually available to those that are to spend it. But even under the worst possible circumstance, given the smallness, the size, the scope of the ACT budget, I could not conceive that if we brought down the budget in September we would need a Supply Bill for any greater period than four months; and that would be the very outside. So given that the Government intends to bring its budget down in September, I have received no explanation, and I do not understand why the Supply Bill covers such a long period of time as six months.
The second matter that I want to allude to is the absolute incomprehensibility of the Supply Bill to most people. I have last year's budget before me. The Supply Bill, as I understand it, if it is a six months' Supply Bill, is supposed to be half of the achieved budget of this current fiscal year; that is the basis on which it is developed. But one would expect that, if that were the case, one would be able to take the Supply Bill, set it down alongside this year's budget and relate the items one to the other to see that in fact that is the case. But they are absolutely incapable of comparison.
The Supply Bill is in order of appropriation division under some most strange headings. In some cases we have under the heading "Office of City Management", "Division 090 - Program Transport and Works", and not far below it there is
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