Page 5601 - Week 15 - Wednesday, 9 December 2009
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did put enormous pressure on Treasury to actually get that report out in December. It was difficult for me, without the midyear review, to constantly respond to questions about what was happening to our budget without the full, I guess, assessment and analysis that are provided in the midyear review through the work that is done by Treasury.
Whilst I accept December is not ideal and February is the preferred time frame to table that report, to release that report—and indeed it will be next year—I really do not think we need to enshrine that in legislation and remove the capacity to respond to what is occurring in any year when we cannot see into the future.
MS HUNTER (Ginninderra—Parliamentary Convenor, ACT Greens) (5.45): While the Greens will not be supporting the Financial Management (Budget Review) Amendment Bill 2009, we thank Mr Smyth for bringing the bill to the Assembly and for drawing the Assembly’s attention to what is always a very important matter: the budget.
The current Financial Management Act 1996 states that the Treasurer must prepare a budget review for each financial year and must present the budget review for a financial year to the Legislative Assembly not later than 15 February in the financial year. Mr Smyth’s bill seeks to prescribe that this budget review must always be presented after 31 December of a given year. The Greens understand, within the current legislation, that the intent of the budget review, due to its timing being roughly around the middle of the financial year, is to present updated information to allow the assessment of the government’s financial performance against both the financial policy objectives and strategies set out in the financial policy objectives and the strategies statement for the territory budget for the financial year. However, in some circumstances, it may not be appropriate or functional for this review to be held off until after 31 December.
There have been circumstances in the past where a Treasurer judged that it would be in the territory’s interest to present an update of information before the new year. One such example was last December when the country was in the grip of the global financial crisis and the federal government announced their budget review in December to respond to the anxiety and unease surrounding the nation’s financial stability. The ACT also released its budget review at this time, which can be understood as our funding structure is so closely dependent on commonwealth financial assistance.
I have closely examined Mr Quinlan’s original tabling speech when he introduced the Financial Management Bill 2003 (No 2). Mr Quinlan stated that the government of the day considered that the community should be entitled to as much information as possible regarding the true financial state of the territory and that this information be made available in a timely and accessible way. He also went on to say that the requirement of a budget review was to provide the Legislative Assembly with updated budget estimates to take into account any changed circumstances since the preparation of the original budget. Therefore, in exceptional circumstances, and when it was warranted, a review before 31 December would achieve this original objective.
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