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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1995 Week 9 Hansard (21 November) . . Page.. 2181 ..

MR WHITECROSS (continuing):

budget to the parliament for consideration by the parliament. Parliaments in various parts of Australia, including here, have set up an estimates committee process to undertake that consideration on behalf of the parliament in order to inform the parliament about the views of the - - -

Mrs Carnell: No, the figures.

MR WHITECROSS: Mrs Carnell interrupts. A representative cross-section of the parliament informs the parliament about what the government is attempting to do, what its financial management strategy is, and whether they agree with the directions being taken. The Estimates Committee's report forms the background against which the parliament decides whether they believe that the government's budget should be passed or not, whether the government has done the right thing or not. That is the parliamentary system that we work under. That is how the Estimates Committee contributes to that process.

The committee may report on relatively small matters, such as saying, "We have added up the numbers and we cannot get to the same number that the government did". Mrs Carnell appears to think that that is the role of the Estimates Committee. But it may also report on much more substantial matters, such as the priorities of the government. However, in the end, under our system of government, the government must take responsibility for the management of the Territory, and the government must take responsibility for what it does. The parliament can say, "We disagree with the approach you are taking". If the government ignores the parliament, the only option open to the parliament is either to vote down their budget or to move a motion of no confidence in the government. While the government are entitled to their budget, if they fail to be responsive to the parliament, if they fail to be accountable to the parliament, they are open to being removed. That is the background against which the Estimates Committee considers the government's proposed appropriations.

Mr Speaker, in looking at the budget this year, it is interesting to reflect on the recommendations of the Estimates Committee in the light of the claims made by Mrs Carnell when she brought her budget down in the first place. Mrs Carnell's first claim was that it is a budget for sound financial management. She hailed the fact that she was going to bring the budget into a surplus of $21m by the end of the third year and reduce borrowings by the Government. She hailed these features as indicating that this budget was going to represent sound financial management.

As a background to that, Mrs Carnell sought to misrepresent the financial management of the previous Government and to exaggerate perceptions of how the previous Government was managing things in order to justify her program; but more of that later. Mrs Carnell has claimed that her budget will bring about a surplus of $21m by the end of the third year, exactly the same surplus as we were projecting that we would bring in by the same time. While Mrs Carnell hails this as sound financial management, it is identical to what Labor would have done had we been in government. Mrs Carnell trumpets about borrowings under Labor, but this budget brings us the highest level of borrowings ever - higher than the level of borrowings projected by Labor for this financial year.

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