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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 6 Hansard (24 May) . . Page.. 1652 ..
Debate interrupted in accordance with standing order 74 and the resumption of the debate made an order of the day for a later hour.
MR STANHOPE: Mr Speaker, my question is to the Treasurer. This morning on ABC Radio the Treasurer corrected the Minister for Health and Community Care on his understanding of his "discretion" to spend funds on emerging needs. The Treasurer blamed the misunderstanding about the nature of "unallocated" funds to a newly discovered scientific phenomenon. He said:
What you say down the microphone and what comes out at the other end sometimes sounds very different.
The minister for health is clearly unaware of this scientific discovery. In the lines the minister leaked to the Canberra Time before the budget he was clearly of the view that the money was there for him to spend as he thought fit. The minister said to the Canberra Times that the discretionary funds were the "wherewithal to implement my goals". But the goals were undefined. The funds are marked in the budget papers as "unallocated". The Treasurer said this morning that any expenditure by Mr Moore will need cabinet and Assembly approval. Mr Speaker, can the Treasurer say how this extraordinary process-that is, the expenditure of "unallocated" funds at the discretion of a minister-will proceed?
MR HUMPHRIES: I am very pleased to discover that Mr Stanhope has never been in the position of having his words misquoted or coming out differently to the way he intended when they are printed in the media. If he gets through his life as a politician with that never happening to him, he will either have been extraordinarily lucky or he will have never talked to journalists.
Members ought to be very clear about what is happening here. First of all, let me make the point that the-
Members interjecting-
MR HUMPHRIES: If members opposite want an answer to the question, they will have to be quieter than that.
MR SPEAKER: Yes. The question has been asked and the Treasurer should be given the opportunity to answer it.
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