Mr BURKE - 2005-05-04
I assume you can add up. Two plus two equals four. Yesterday, with reference to page 26 of Budget Paper No 2, I asked you why, within an hour of you delivering your budget, the opposition found four simple addition errors on that page of the budget, which are your budget initiatives for Territorians. Can you tell us how many other errors are in the budget papers, or do you expect us to find them for you?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question. Budget Paper No 2 in that table does have addition errors. There are six very comprehensive books here, full of tables, figures, charts, all the way through them. It would be an extraordinary budget that did not contain an arithmetical error somewhere in it. My staff says this about Treasury: they are very good at adding up and taking away - not always so good at telling the time, as sometimes they are late into the office.
It is disappointing to have an error such as that in the books. So what? It will be corrected. We will have a new table and addendum to correct those simple errors. That is all they are. What I would ask the Leader of the Opposition to do is read the tables properly and the headings at the top so he knows what they mean.
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question. Budget Paper No 2 in that table does have addition errors. There are six very comprehensive books here, full of tables, figures, charts, all the way through them. It would be an extraordinary budget that did not contain an arithmetical error somewhere in it. My staff says this about Treasury: they are very good at adding up and taking away - not always so good at telling the time, as sometimes they are late into the office.
It is disappointing to have an error such as that in the books. So what? It will be corrected. We will have a new table and addendum to correct those simple errors. That is all they are. What I would ask the Leader of the Opposition to do is read the tables properly and the headings at the top so he knows what they mean.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016