Ms CARNEY - 2006-05-02
Some three years ago, the Chief Minister told Territorians that if any CEO of a department did not live within their budget they would be sacked. You have just told the House in a previous answer that it is normal – it certainly is normal under Labor - for budgets to blow out. Treasurer, who is wrong? You or the person on your left?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I thank the Leader of the Opposition for her question. Perhaps I should go into teacher mode for just a little, but it is so patronising, I dislike doing it.
I tried to explain before that the budget, as it is laid out in May, as of today, and it spells out the expenditure for 2006-07, is simply never, ever going to be able to list and enumerate all of the expenditure requirements for that agency going forward.
I had an example at lunchtime - I am not sure I am liberty to quote - no. However, the Commonwealth, in all its wisdom, may, between now and when it delivers its budget next week, contact agencies and say: ‘Here is $15m for such and such a project’. They have done it before. In fact, in the 2003-04 budget, one of the reasons that we produced an even healthier surplus than we thought we might in the end, was that $36m extra came through in the last six weeks of the financial year, and it was not known at the time the budget was put down in May of 2003.
Those sorts of eventualities always have occurred and will always occur into the future. It does not mean that a chief executive officer has, to put it in the words of the Leader of the Opposition, blown their budget. If they have, the penalty under this government is to start looking for another job. The Chief Minister has made that patently clear during the course of the life of this government and that is still the rule.
Let us take DEET as an example; around $580m in the budget last year. It is probably spent close to $630m. There are the EBAs, the extra expenditure approved by Cabinet throughout the year, the signing of the training agreement and the indigenous education agreement might have been in there, but a range of agreements sometimes in the tens of millions of dollars, many of those agreements require matching expenditure by the state or territory. If you are going to bring in a program out of the blue – could be a $15m program - and you have to spend at least $10m against that program, that can, in fact, mean more staff. Maybe the last thing you want to do is put on more staff. However, if you are going to get your hands on that $15m to enhance the educational outcomes of Territorians, which is what the Commonwealth and the Northern Territory governments both agreed to, then you have to match, as per the rules of the agreement, you have to put on those extra staff in order to be able to bring that program to life.
That is just a snapshot of what can occur throughout a year. When an EBA is ticked off and signed, I would not be in the room with the union when you are suggesting to them: ‘Yes, okay you have your 5% but we are not going to pay it until the first of July next year’. I do not think that would be a healthy place to be for anyone if you are going to put that to the workers.
The other example most recently in our minds is the floods and the expenditure in relation to Cyclone Monica. We are not going to say to Maningrida School: ‘Sorry about that school but we cannot actually rebuild it until 2007-08’. I will tell you why, because that houses the Year 12 students at Maningrida, and if there is one thing I am hanging my hat on as minister for Education, and one thing I am enormously proud of, it is these indigenous students in their own home community achieving their Year 12. They have done it in Maningrida in the past and they will do it again this year. We are not going to have them fail because we are not going rebuild their school until the next financial year. It is just an example. It is an example of the sorts of things that occur throughout the year which require extra expenditure.
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I thank the Leader of the Opposition for her question. Perhaps I should go into teacher mode for just a little, but it is so patronising, I dislike doing it.
I tried to explain before that the budget, as it is laid out in May, as of today, and it spells out the expenditure for 2006-07, is simply never, ever going to be able to list and enumerate all of the expenditure requirements for that agency going forward.
I had an example at lunchtime - I am not sure I am liberty to quote - no. However, the Commonwealth, in all its wisdom, may, between now and when it delivers its budget next week, contact agencies and say: ‘Here is $15m for such and such a project’. They have done it before. In fact, in the 2003-04 budget, one of the reasons that we produced an even healthier surplus than we thought we might in the end, was that $36m extra came through in the last six weeks of the financial year, and it was not known at the time the budget was put down in May of 2003.
Those sorts of eventualities always have occurred and will always occur into the future. It does not mean that a chief executive officer has, to put it in the words of the Leader of the Opposition, blown their budget. If they have, the penalty under this government is to start looking for another job. The Chief Minister has made that patently clear during the course of the life of this government and that is still the rule.
Let us take DEET as an example; around $580m in the budget last year. It is probably spent close to $630m. There are the EBAs, the extra expenditure approved by Cabinet throughout the year, the signing of the training agreement and the indigenous education agreement might have been in there, but a range of agreements sometimes in the tens of millions of dollars, many of those agreements require matching expenditure by the state or territory. If you are going to bring in a program out of the blue – could be a $15m program - and you have to spend at least $10m against that program, that can, in fact, mean more staff. Maybe the last thing you want to do is put on more staff. However, if you are going to get your hands on that $15m to enhance the educational outcomes of Territorians, which is what the Commonwealth and the Northern Territory governments both agreed to, then you have to match, as per the rules of the agreement, you have to put on those extra staff in order to be able to bring that program to life.
That is just a snapshot of what can occur throughout a year. When an EBA is ticked off and signed, I would not be in the room with the union when you are suggesting to them: ‘Yes, okay you have your 5% but we are not going to pay it until the first of July next year’. I do not think that would be a healthy place to be for anyone if you are going to put that to the workers.
The other example most recently in our minds is the floods and the expenditure in relation to Cyclone Monica. We are not going to say to Maningrida School: ‘Sorry about that school but we cannot actually rebuild it until 2007-08’. I will tell you why, because that houses the Year 12 students at Maningrida, and if there is one thing I am hanging my hat on as minister for Education, and one thing I am enormously proud of, it is these indigenous students in their own home community achieving their Year 12. They have done it in Maningrida in the past and they will do it again this year. We are not going to have them fail because we are not going rebuild their school until the next financial year. It is just an example. It is an example of the sorts of things that occur throughout the year which require extra expenditure.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016