Page 2944 - Week 09 - Thursday, 13 August 2015
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
The government recognises the importance of the timely planning and development of road infrastructure projects to meet the future needs of our city. The budget provides $2.5 million over two years for this purpose, covering feasibility and/or design studies for six intersections and main access routes across Canberra.
The budget provides $900,000 in 2016-17 to assess the need for road upgrades in the vicinity of the airport, including Pialligo Avenue. This road provides an important link to Queanbeyan and regional New South Wales. We will work closely with Queanbeyan City and surrounding councils to progress these links, including future joint funding submissions to the Australian government.
As our city continues to develop, a planned and integrated approach towards the provision of road infrastructure will only become more important, and I am pleased that this government is leading the way in this regard.
Proposed expenditure agreed to.
Total appropriated to agencies agreed to.
Treasurer’s Advance—schedule 1, part 1.20.
MR SMYTH (Brindabella) (9.05): The Treasurer’s advance, of course, is the honey pot that the government often resorts to. It was interesting that on 24 June this year the government managed to take what was left and emptied the pot quite convincingly, leaving a mere $467,000 in the pot.
Mr Assistant Speaker, some of the Treasurer’s advance you can say has been used wisely. A great deal of it you would have to say is because of poor planning. For instance, the Chief Minister, Treasury and Economic Development Directorate got $845,000 to meet cash requirements for annual leave entitlements. How is it you can do your budget and not include annual leave entitlements? For instance, Community Services got $862,000 on the same day, 24 June, for annual leave entitlements following employee redundancies as part of the NDIS. You could say that it was unexpected but they certainly knew that these redundancies were coming and perhaps they should have planned for it. We know that in the outyears there is still money in the budget that is inflated against the number of employees that they will have in those years.
For instance, Chief Minister, Treasury and Economic Development got $1.214 million for higher than anticipated sportsground irrigation costs and activities. This was across a year when I suspect that, in November and December 2014, it got quite hot. There were some fires around the country, people might recall. But the summer then waned. So it is interesting that we have fewer sportsgrounds but we suddenly had to find $1.2 million for irrigation.
Plus there were some activities by the public housing renewal task force to facilitate the territory’s participation in the commonwealth asset recycling initiative. I wonder whether Mr Coe has added that to his list of funding for capital metro. What
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video