Page 2776 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 23 June 2009
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I just put on record again that it is unacceptable that the government come in here asking us to pass their budget and fail to answer the most basic questions about how they will be spending this money. It is simply a government that have shown themselves either unable or unwilling to cooperate with the Assembly in the process of scrutinising this budget. It is a bit rich for them to call upon us to support all aspects of the budget when they cannot tell us what they will be spending the money on.
This is not a question about what they may have spent money on five years ago, or what they make plans to spend money on in five years time. This is about this year’s appropriation, the 2009-10 appropriation, and how they intend to spend that. We see a pattern and it seems most evident from the Chief Minister in some of his answers both as Chief Minister and, indeed, as Minister for Territory and Municipal Services, in simply seeking to avoid giving us the answer to this question.
I put it again to the minister: is it because they are not up to answering such basic questions or is it that they have something to hide and they do not want us to know the basics of how this money will be spent? It is fundamentally once again this minister and government thumbing their noses at the Assembly and saying, “I do not have to tell you how we are going to spend the money.” Well, you do. You have to tell us how you are going to spend the money, and that is why we go through this process.
The crocodile tears we see from the Chief Minister about being asked questions are made to look even more ridiculous when we see some of the most basic questions, questions you would think would be able to be answered without any effort by departments, not being answered. I think this is simply stubbornness and a complete refusal to actually tell us. We will continue to ask these questions and I suppose he will then have to justify, once the budget is passed, why he cannot tell us.
We should know this before we are asked to pass a budget. We do not know how much they are planning on spending in a number of these areas. We have seen a history from this government of overspending and wasteful spending. Our job as an Assembly is to ensure that every bit of taxpayer dollar is spent appropriately. We are well within our rights to be asking for this information and it should be provided to us.
We see in TAMS also that there was discussion about the Ernst & Young review. The Chief Minister said:
The department commissioned Ernst & Young for advice in relation to financial management and strategic planning, but the report was not commissioned on the basis of making suggestions or finding savings and it does not provide that.
I do find this a little bit strange. Certainly, it was reported at the time—and it was our understanding at the time—that this was about finding savings. It is a $400,000 report. It is quite a substantial consultancy. I would have thought that finding savings and efficiencies would have been part of that. We asked about this. Indeed, there is a committee recommendation that the Ernst & Young review of the Department of Territory and Municipal Services’ financial and asset management be tabled during the June sitting.
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