Page 5335 - Week 17 - Thursday, 13 December 1990
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PUBLIC ACCOUNTS - STANDING COMMITTEE
Report on 1989-90 Budget Funding for Additional Domestic Violence Refuge for Women
MS FOLLETT (Leader of the Opposition) (12.36 am): I present the following papers:
Public Accounts - Standing Committee - 1989-90 Budget Funding for an Additional Domestic Refuge for Women -
Report No. 3, dated December 1990.
Copies of extracts of minutes of proceedings.
I move:
That the report be noted.
It was Mrs Nolan who, in fact, threw down the gauntlet on the question of the additional domestic violence refuge in question time on 1 May. At that time Mrs Nolan asked me, as chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, whether I would investigate whether a sum of $142,000 was set aside in the 1989-90 budget to build a second women's domestic violence crisis refuge, whether I would ascertain whether this amount was for a part year cost only, and whether the full year effect was $238,000; and, if so, why those funds were not separately appropriated in the Appropriation Bill 1989. I was also requested to advise how the former Government's budget process allowed the supported accommodation assistance program's additional funding, which is required for urgent ongoing grants in the area of youth homelessness and other support, to be allocated to a domestic violence crisis refuge under the guise of a separate appropriation.
Needless to say, I was only too happy to oblige Mrs Nolan in taking on that inquiry, although anybody who has read it through would see that it is internally inconsistent. Nevertheless, that was the hallmark of this entire inquiry. To do justice to Mrs Nolan, I do not believe that she thought up that question.
Mr Collaery: I gave it to her.
MS FOLLETT: I would have thought so. Mr Collaery remarks that he gave it to her. That comes as no surprise. In looking at the question of the funding of the second domestic violence refuge in last year's budget, the committee was very concerned to find that most of the information offered to us was confusing and totally contradictory. We had submissions from the Ministers involved. We had information from bureaucrats involved. We had a debate in the Estimates Committee. I think the matter was also the subject of a matter of public importance.
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