Page 1371 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 6 May 2015
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Amendment agreed to.
Clause 6, as amended, agreed to.
Title.
MR COE (Ginninderra) (11.16): I thank members for their contributions to the debate on this bill. This bill is an important step in increasing the scrutiny of government spending and is a move towards more open government here in the territory. I am pleased that in this instance it seems all members of the Assembly are on the same page. Whilst we may have different ideas of the thresholds included in the bill, as a principle the concept of declaring how significant sums are spent is something which I truly believe will contribute to better government.
Of course, how we got to this point is somewhat interesting. After tabling my bill, I heard nothing at all from the government. In fact, the first I heard from the government was when a similarly named bill that turned out to be almost exactly the same in content was on the notice paper. In a demonstration of our willingness to compromise, I accepted the government’s desire to change several aspects of the bill, and the amended bill, whilst not 100 per cent of what I envisaged, is a good step forward, I believe.
The bill recognises that every cent of over $4 billion of annual expenditure that this government spends comes from taxpayers who have worked hard for it. Recognising the origins of government funds should lead to greater care over how the money is spent. The bill provides greater scrutiny and transparency to help improve accountability. Accountability should lead to greater care from the government.
The bill as amended requires the government to publish details of all government invoices over $25,000 on the notifiable invoices register. A notifiable invoice will be any invoice for the prescribed amount or more that is payable for goods, services or works provided by the territory or a territory entity. The prescribed amount is currently set at $25,000. The notifiable invoices register will include details about invoices, including the name of the entity invoicing the territory, the entity’s ABN, the name of the territory entity responsible for the invoice, a brief description of what the invoice is for, the date the invoice was paid, the date the invoice was received, the value of the good, service or work under invoice, and anything else prescribed by regulation.
The government should make it clear to entities who choose to be engaged by the government in the provision of goods, services or work that such payments will be declared. All organisations that receive government funds should do so in the knowledge that if the amount is over the threshold it will be published. The government would be wise to make this perfectly clear to entities.
I also hope that the government will publish the data in a format that is accessible for people who are vision impaired. There are many other jurisdictions around the world that are moving in this direction. Throughout the United States such declarations are
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