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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 11 Hansard (21 October) . . Page.. 3821 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

budget estimate procedure. The scrutiny of bills committee made no comment in relation to this bill, which is based on reforms that were introduced in Victoria after Kennett.

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Before I outline the Greens' in principle support to this bill I briefly note that I will not support the amendment to be moved by Mr Stefaniak, which refers to the preparation of an additional report in Victoria.

I foreshadow that I will be moving an amendment to insert in proposed new clause 11 (4) (c) the words "the object of ecologically sustainable development". I have used wording taken from the Auditor-General Act that relates to matters to be taken into account in the preparation of the budget. I apologise to members for the lateness of this amendment.

The focus of this bill is on increasing the amount of information to be made available and setting out some basic principles for the construction of the budget, increased information, including underlying assumptions, financial and other, and a statement of sensitivity of the budget estimates to arrange and identify risks. That information will add to what can be scrutinised by estimates committees and by the Auditor-General. This audit of results-our truth check-will be invaluable in providing an independent view of what has gone on.

The difficulty lies in ensuring that forecast figures are what they appear to be. This bill will address that problem only in part through the introduction of mid-term updates to forecasts and pre-election. A regular budget frustration is the blurring of new initiatives funding into ongoing items. There is no clear breakdown in the budget papers of ongoing programs or initiative funding, so it is not possible on any reading of the budget documents to determine whether new initiatives have been rebadged or whether they are slightly reworked old programs. This area of budget accountability also merits more attention.

Until now the construction of budgets in the ACT has been a purely short-term economic analysis. We have referred in this place for some time to the introduction of triple bottom-line budgeting and reporting, and gender auditing. This government made a commitment to implement both triple bottom-line reporting and gender auditing, but so far we have seen very little action in that area. The Greens' focus is on widening the understanding of the budget as a policy document. That has got to be-it is for the Greens-a major priority. If we shift the thinking on the economic analysis to include social and environmental factors, we will be doing something in the ACT of which we can be proud. If we can achieve that it will have good implications for, and repercussions well into, the future. I will refer to that issue in the detail stage.

I well remember debates in this place when we introduced accrual accounting. We believed it would result in a real understanding of the state of our territory. It resulted in a degree of improvement, but that improvement was limited. We certainly did not take into account our social and environmental liabilities. That, of course, was the aim of introducing into the budget triple bottom-line reporting and gender auditing. The budget documents are the most important policy documents of any government. We have a deficit of understanding of the impact of those policy documents. As I said earlier, I will refer to those issues in the detail stage. The Greens are happy to support this bill with the addition of my foreshadowed amendment. Government budgeting is not the same as business budgeting.

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