Page 1685 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 4 May 2010
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Mr Hanson interjecting—
MR SPEAKER: Order! The Speaker is making a ruling. I do not expect to be interrupted when I am doing so. As I was saying, Mr Hanson, you came very close to being warned for making a frivolous point of order. Members of the gallery of course are allowed to be amused by any member of this place, if they happen to be.
Mrs Dunne: On the point of order, Mr Speaker.
MR SPEAKER: Yes, Mrs Dunne.
Mrs Dunne: There is a difference between amused and audibly laughing and I think that is what Mr Hanson objected to.
MR SPEAKER: Can you stop the clocks, please, Clerk. The Speaker is not going to rule or require the gallery to laugh in particular ways.
MS GALLAGHER: Thank you, Mr Speaker. The question was: what have I done, essentially, to manage the capital program? We accepted that in terms of some of the rollovers and underspends we needed to tighten up our processes and over the last 12 months we have been doing exactly that. We have been tightening up our processes, looking at where there are bottlenecks and looking at our reporting regimes. I meet with chief financial officers almost every month to work through all the programs they have in front of them—whether they are delayed and what the reasons behind those delays are. We have, I think, worked very hard in the last 12 months to improve our processes. I think you will see that in the terms of the final capital spend for this financial year.
MR SPEAKER: Ms Porter, a supplementary question?
MS PORTER: Minister, could you tell us about any records you have in relation to infrastructure spend by governments in the past?
MS GALLAGHER: I thank Ms Porter for the question. It is not surprising that our capital works projects and our capital works budgets have increased since self-government, but every year you will see from this government that we have built upon the previous year’s spend. Indeed, in the budget that I am about to introduce, you will see a further commitment and strengthening around our capital works program. Indeed, I think when you compare it to the last year of the Liberal government, what was their capital spend there?
Mr Stanhope: About $60 million.
MS GALLAGHER: It was about $60 million that was delivered. We are delivering a program of $600 million this year. We accept that our infrastructure needs are growing, that our city is growing and that we have to meet those needs. Part of that is through very good, responsible investment in high quality public assets. That is something that we have been working on since our term in government. You will see
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