Page 1797 - Week 06 - Thursday, 19 May 1994
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up a trust fund to deal with it. I am surprised that we are suggesting that we perpetuate a trust fund for that purpose here. This money disappears out of the budget. It is just another little slush fund. We have just eliminated a $30m trust fund that the health organisation had last year, and now we are going to create another one.
The other element of this is donations. I can understand that private enterprise and private individuals making donations want to be assured that the money is spent for the purpose for which they give it. I would argue that that sort of money should not be going through the public accounts anyway. It is not public money. If it is to be properly accounted for, the health organisation should set up a foundation into which this money is paid and a management board should be set up to manage that foundation. That money should not go through the public accounts at all, in my view.
Mr Connolly: It just lets you have a look at it and lets your committee look at it so that you know what is happening. It is a matter of record.
MR KAINE: Mr Connolly cannot just sit there and listen and perhaps take some advice as to some things that he should look at in his own budget and in his own management field. You set up a trust fund such as this and it will grow. In fact, last year the estimates showed that the opening balance of $1.6m in 1992-93 would grow to $2.7m in 1996-97. Why it would grow I cannot imagine. In fact, I would say that the transition fund should have reduced to zero, but it is predicted that it will grow. If you establish such a trust fund, it will grow all right. Every little bit of money that we cannot spend this year will find its way into a trust fund so that it can be spent next year, the year after that or sometime downstream.
That is not what public money is for. It should not be going into such an account. I make a distinction between public money and private money. Private money should be dealt with as private money - not put into Consolidated Revenue, not put into a public trust fund, but put into a foundation where people can be assured that it is being managed and spent for the purpose for which it is donated. As always, Madam Speaker, there are things about this Supply Bill that deserve to be remarked upon and that perhaps the Chief Minister can throw some light on when she responds.
MS SZUTY (4.45): I support the Chief Minister's Supply Bill for 1994-95. In so doing, I note that the amount provided is less than in previous years due to the earlier budget presentation. Mr Kaine and I have looked at the Supply Bill in slightly different ways, but it amounts to the same thing. It has been a quite interesting exercise. The appropriation in this Bill is $515,595,800 - a reduction of $127,771,500, or nearly 20 per cent, from the appropriation in the 1993-94 Supply Act. The benefit of the earlier budget cycle is already clearly apparent, and I trust that next year it will be more so, as there will not be a need to include additional funds in the Bill as a contingency against the uncertainties of an earlier budget process.
In looking at the appropriations on a program basis, in comparison to the 1993-94 Supply Act, it is clear that the overall 20 per cent reduction does not apply across the board. There are reductions of 25 per cent for the Legislative Assembly, 33 per cent for the Chief Minister's Department, 6.5 per cent for the Department of the Environment, Land and Planning, 6 per cent for the Bureau of Sport, Recreation and Racing, 5.5 per cent in
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