Page 2720 - Week 09 - Thursday, 25 August 1994
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In formulating this year's capital budget we have taken account of those factors, and I expect that all of those matters will be resolved. The reduction in the public works and services budget that Mr Kaine has referred to has come about largely because of the winding down of the hospital redevelopment project at long last. That has been an extraordinarily expensive project. It will amount in total to about $200m. It has taken place over a number of years, but we have now passed the expenditure hump in that project and there is some winding down occurring there.
On the general question of expenditure of capital works moneys, Madam Speaker, I would like to make it clear that, in devising the capital works budget, I expect that the projects that are funded in that budget will be completed. Treasury, in particular, has been working with agencies to ensure that capital works proposals put up for funding are achievable, that they have been well thought out, and that they can be completed in the year for which they are being funded. That work is still progressing. I do think that we are making strides there. If you look at the reasons for underexpenditure this year you will see that the major areas of underexpenditure were beyond the control of the Government or the agencies.
I would like also to answer Mr De Domenico. The earlier budget will help with the expenditure of capital works because, clearly, everybody can get an earlier start on that work and an earlier indication of the Government's intentions. The issues with the NCPA that I referred to in relation to the Magistrates Court and the hospice have now been resolved, so those projects are steaming ahead in this current year. This year, and in the coming year and in future years, I, as Treasurer, and the Treasury will need to monitor capital works projects very closely to ensure the completion of those projects in the year for which they are funded. I take that point.
Proposed expenditure agreed to.
Proposed expenditure - Division 210 - Corporate Development for the Department of Urban Services, $30,531,000
MR KAINE (3.56): Madam Speaker, this is another appropriation which I think the Chief Minister or somebody needs to explain. Last year we had an appropriation for corporate development for the Department of Urban Services specifically of $8.9m in round figures. Let us say that it was $9m. There was, in addition, an appropriation, in round figures, of $53m for government corporate services. Government corporate services is the source from which the funding of the new Department of Public Administration has come, obviously; namely, just over $20m. But corporate development for the Department of Urban Services has increased by about 350 per cent, from $9m to just over $30m. I ask the Chief Minister: How can the Department of Urban Services spend an increase of that order of magnitude on corporate development for itself, since we now have the separate Department of Public Administration with its own budget of $20m, which presumably is looking after the public administration of the whole of the ACT public sector? What happened in the Department of Urban Services that required the appropriation for just its corporate development to jump in one year from $9m to over $30m? It has not been explained, and I think it needs to be.
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