Page 223 - Week 01 - Thursday, 18 February 1993
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The other item was the visit of a Turkish VIP which resulted in a very high level of police attendance. I had assumed that that would have been paid for by the Commonwealth, as we had established with the George Bush visit compared to the Queen's visit. We established that when a VIP visited Canberra as a community we paid. If a VIP visited the Commonwealth, visited the national Parliament, and the visit had no connection with the ACT, we would expect the Commonwealth to pay. We have argued that the Commonwealth should pay that amount of roughly $400,000. To date the Commonwealth has not accepted that.
What has happened, though, is that Senator Tate has said that the Commonwealth would be prepared, on an ongoing basis in future years, to pick up responsibility for about $2m worth of what is currently ACT policing. As members would be aware, the ACT contingent of the AFP is about 700 officers, and about 80 of them are paid for by the Commonwealth. They are available for general duties but they are paid for by the Commonwealth to recognise the fact that we are the national capital and that there are these VIP visits. The Tate offer basically amounts to picking up an additional seven officers, with salaries and oncosts, and also about $1.5m worth of additional costs - head office costs, computer costs, forensic costs. That will apply for future years.
Of the $800,000 overrun, roughly half is explainable by those two unusual circumstances - the Winchester inquiry and the Turkish VIP visit. The remainder is made up of motor vehicle costs. The cost which the AFP are charged by DAS per motor vehicle kilometre went up. It would appear that the AFP budgeted to use the same amount of dollars as they had last year for the same amount of car kilometres, even though the cost per car kilometre was going up. That is hardly an item that can be regarded as an extraordinary item of expenditure for supplementation. It is an item for which managers should have budgeted correctly. Other items included forensic and other oncosts. There has been an overexpenditure of about $800,000 - or there would have been had action not been taken to rein in costs. The kerfuffle that is going on at the moment is essentially senior managers saying that if we had kept spending the way we were we would be over budget by $800,000. We have reined costs in with the aim, at the end of the accounting period, of bringing costs in on the line, which I presume is the approach to government budgeting that generally the former Chief Minister and former Treasurer would have expected this Government to take.
MR KAINE: I ask a supplementary question, Madam Speaker. The answer to that question is yes. I am glad that somebody asked me a question. I appreciate the long and informative answer that the Minister has given but, just to summarise, I take it that there is not in fact an $800,000 overrun and, secondly, that there is still doubt as to whether all of the $400,000 will be compensated for by the Commonwealth.
MR CONNOLLY: Yes. With the expenditure changes that occurred in recent weeks, which have been widely publicised as the result of some meetings that one of your party colleagues is beating up on, we are now planning to come in on budget at the end of the budget period. Had we not taken remedial action we were heading for an $800,000 overexpenditure. The sum of $400,000 in relation to the Winchester inquiry and the Turkish VIP visit is a matter which we are still pursuing with the Commonwealth authorities. As I have previously said publicly, because it was unforeseen and unforeseeable, it is a matter that can legitimately be looked at within ACT government as a supplementation item. In any event, with our expenditure changes we are heading to come in on budget.
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