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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 10 Hansard (23 September) . . Page.. 3475 ..
Tuesday, 23 September 2003
THE SPEAKER (Mr Berry) took the chair at 10.30 am, made a formal recognition that the Assembly was meeting on the lands of the traditional owners, and asked members to stand in silence and pray or reflect on their responsibilities to the people of the Australian Capital Territory.
Estimates 2003-2004 (No 2)-Select Committee
Report
MR SMYTH (Leader of the Opposition) (10.34): Mr Speaker, pursuant to order, I present the following report:
Estimates 2003-2004 (No. 2)-Select Committee-Report on the Inquiry into the Appropriation Bill 2003-2004 (No. 2), dated 18 September 2003, together with a copy of the extracts of the relevant minutes of proceeding.
I seek leave to move a motion authorising the publication of the report.
Leave granted.
MR SMYTH: I move:
That the report be authorised for publication.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
MR SMYTH: I move:
That the report be noted.
Mr Speaker, at the end of August, the government brought into this place a second appropriation bill seeking another $28 million, in the main, to implement a large number of recommendations from the McLeod inquiry into the bushfires of 18 January this year. The committee held public hearings and had deliberative meetings and has asked me to table this report today on behalf of the committee. I am sure that other committee members will speak to it as well. There are 12 recommendations in the report, which does cover a number of areas. I wish to make a few general comments about what the committee found out and the conclusions that the committee came to.
Mr Speaker, the bill was tabled in the Assembly some eight weeks after the budget itself was passed, which was in the last week of June this year, and the majority of the members of the committee had some concerns that many of the items listed for consideration really should have been included in the budget which was tabled in May and passed in June.
There seems to be a lack of strategic planning in the way in which the finances of the territory are being managed because, eight weeks after the budget was passed, another appropriation bill came forward under the guise of being for the implementation of recommendations of the McLeod report with a fair amount of activity tacked on that
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