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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 4 Hansard (28 March) . . Page.. 987 ..
MR OSBORNE (5.05): Pursuant to order, I present the following report:
Justice and Community Safety - Standing Committee - Report No. 9 - The 2000/01 Draft Budget of the Department of Justice and Community Safety and Related Agencies, dated March 2000, including a dissenting report, together with a copy of the extracts of the minutes of proceedings.
I move:
That the report be noted.
As other members have already mentioned, this is the first time we as an Assembly have attempted to look at the budget in a draft form. This trial, as we have heard today, Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, has not been without its detractors and it has not been without some measure of difficulty. However, on the whole, I think the majority of members of the committee have found it to be a positive move with considerable merit, and the committee has recommended that this approach be continued for some time. I understand that Mr Hargreaves has some additional comments to make about this and some other aspects of the report. I will leave it to him to explain.
One of the comments that continually came from community groups when making their submissions to the committee was the supposed lack of time to scrutinise the draft budget. Some of them, it seems, were unable to put a detailed submission together within the four weeks timeframe that they were allocated. Their comments indicate to me, Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, that perhaps they need to adjust their internal communication structures so that they can respond next time within a month. I also believe that some detractors of the draft budget process need to remember that this is the first time in the history of the ACT Assembly, and maybe the first time in the history of government in Australia, that the community has had an opportunity like this. I accept that this first attempt has not been perfect, but it is well worth persisting with.
Another comment that came from almost every submission was over the lack of excess funds within the portfolio. The Department of Justice and Community Safety seems to be fairly streamlined and efficiently managed, which made the identification of funds that could be redirected to new projects quite a problem.
Part way through this inquiry I wrote on behalf of the committee to the Attorney-General to ask for his assistance on this. The committee had found a number of projects worthy of funding but could not readily identify where cuts could be made. Mr Humphries wrote back to explain that up to $1.5m could be available to this portfolio due to changes in the way sales tax would be applied under the GST. Unfortunately, the committee did not have the time to go over these issues thoroughly and did not make a recommendation in relation to this, but, from a personal perspective, Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, they are changes which I would support. Accordingly,
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