Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I present a supplementary explanatory memorandum to the bill. By leave—I move government amendments (1) and (2) as circulated together:

(1) Page 15, before Schedule 1, insert:

Schedule 1—Payments to or for the States, ACT, NT and local government

Note: See section 18.

(2) Schedule 1, page 15, omit the heading, substitute:

Schedule 2—Services for which money is appropriated

I am moving an amendment to Appropriation Bill (No. 6) 2013-2014 to insert a schedule that was omitted during the printing process. The error arose in the Office of Parliamentary Counsel's printing process for the bill, which resulted in the omission of schedule 1 to the bill. This schedule refers to two outcomes, one related to infrastructure payments and the other relating to Indigenous services and programs. This schedule sets out conditions for payments to the states, territories and local government by allowing designated ministers to make determinations on how the relevant amounts are to be paid.

The new schedule 1 covers only two of the programs in the bill, and this provides for a total of nearly $319 million, which is for payments to states, territories and local government. What will now become schedule 2 is already included in the bill and sets out the full $972 million of appropriations in the bill. As this schedule was misnumbered as schedule 1, the numbering will be corrected by the amendment.

Bills are occasionally introduced with typographical errors which arise during or prior to printing processes and, for this reason, some of these issues can be corrected administratively through an amendment by a presiding officer. However, in this case amendments are required to give effect to what the government intended. We are looking at the bill-proofing processes to guard against future such problems.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I feel for the parliamentary secretary in having to deliver that speech, because the Treasurer certainly was not willing to come in and explain the fact that due diligence from the ministers in this government was not done. What we have right now is the fact that, in bringing budget legislation into the House, the government lost just short of $1 billion—$972 million that was meant to be there was not. What line did we hear from the Leader of the House when they had a special resolution on this last week and from the parliamentary secretary now? Blame the public servants. The argument is: 'It wasn't the minister's fault; it wasn't the Treasurer's fault; it wasn't the fault of whoever actually introduced the bill to the parliament; it is the public servants' fault.

I have to tell the members of this government: first and foremost, when you are elected to this place, you are legislators. If you introduce legislation which is missing fundamental operable parts, you have the courage to actually own the mistake yourself. Implicit in the speech that has just been given, saying, 'It's the public servants' fault,' is an argument that whoever introduced the bill did not even read the bill. If you read the substantive parts of this bill, section 3 refers, under 'Other departmental items', to schedule 2. Under 'State, ACT, NT and local government items', it refers to schedule 2. In section 6 of the bill, it refers to schedule 2. In section 9 of the bill, it refers to schedule 2 in subsection (a), and again in (c) and again in (e). Then, in section 11 of the bill, it again refers to schedule 2.

You would think, if you are a member of parliament and a minister introducing a bill, with that many references to schedule 2 you might at some point flick through and say, 'I'd better check what schedule 2 says,' only to discover it is not there. In not being there, nearly $1 billion of the budget got lost. Nearly $1 billion of the budget was never actually introduced to the parliament.

I would have some respect if the government were willing to say that they did not do the due diligence and that a member of parliament who introduced a bill, a Treasurer who takes responsibility for the budget, did not actually go through it in the level of detail that they ought. That would be an honest argument, it would be a fair cop on the chin and it would be a reasonable thing to do. But on two occasions now their approach has been to blame the public servants. Their approach has been to blame the printing process and say, 'We need to get administrative arrangements in better order.' I am sorry, Parliamentary Secretary, and I am sorry, members of the government; if you introduce legislation to this parliament, you are responsible for it. The people in charge of the printing presses do not get to introduce the bill. They do not get to be members of parliament. The people in administrative roles do not carry the responsibility of legislation. But those opposite now want us to believe that $1 billion can just get lost and, if that happens, 'Well, we'll blame the public servants.'

The parliamentary secretary should find out whoever wrote the speech for him—and that is not pejorative; in these sorts of measures it is common practice for there to be an executive decision about the words that will be used because they have legal effect. But whoever was responsible at an executive level for ticking that off should be well and truly ashamed of the fact that what we have in front of us is a situation where due diligence was not done by the executive—not on some technical, legal, hard-to-pick issue but on the fact that, after all the references to Schedule 2, it was not even there! Someone on that side of the House should have the courage to just say: they made a mistake; they did not do due diligence. Instead, we see what is standard form for those opposite: nothing is ever their fault; it is always the fault of someone else. And on this occasion, some poor public servant or printer is actually being told that it is their fault. Well, it is not. This is the fault of an executive that had a budget in disarray, that is engaging itself in administrative chaos and that refused to engage in basic due diligence in introducing budget bills.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is all well and good for the Manager of Opposition Business to come in here and point the finger and say that we should admit our mistakes. Sure, a mistake has been made, and I have come into the House and I have said that a mistake has been made. But, irrespective of who made that mistake, I would just like an admission from those opposite on the fact that for six years they made relentless mistakes—endless mistakes. And he claims that $1 billion has been lost in this process. Well, $1 billion has not been exactly lost. We are amending Appropriation Bill (No. 6) 2013-2014 on a technicality. But if we are talking about billions of dollars being lost, why is this nation facing $123 billion worth of deficits? This is $123 billion in deficits that has been lost, not to mention the $667 billion lost—lost—by Labor, going forward, if left unchecked by this side. But we will correct that, won't we, Member for Fadden?

Stuart Robert (Fadden, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Absolutely.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We will fix that mistake up. And certainly the Australian people are looking forward to us getting on with the job of doing that.

Bill 6 provides for an appropriation of $972.365 million for the following activities. The Department of Agriculture will receive $40 million for drought programs. We are getting on with the job of making sure that those people neglected by Labor are looked after—making sure that those people in the far west of New South Wales and the south-west of Queensland who are facing severe dry conditions are looked after. The Attorney-General's Department will receive $5 million to fund royal commissions. The Department of Defence will receive $600 million for the procurement of defence equipment. The member for Fadden, the minister at the table, certainly knows how badly defence was let down when Labor was in government. That is not to mention the DFRDB and the DFRB indexation issues but also defence spending, which fell to its lowest proportion of gross domestic product since 1938 under Labor. And we all know what happened in 1939. So Labor let our defences run short—run low—and it affected every defence base. Certainly, it affected my Kapooka base, the Army Recruit Training Centre at Wagga Wagga, where all of the recruits go through and get trained for their important duties on behalf of this nation.

Bill 6 also provides for $294 million to the Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development to fund various infrastructure projects, because we know how important infrastructure is to this nation. We understand.

Labor promised a lot but delivered little. Labor said it was going to provide for important infrastructure projects in road and rail and everything else, but then did not have any plan to get on with doing it. The only plan that Labor has is to eradicate the memory of 7 September last year—election day. That is Labor's only plan. We heard the 13 May budget delivered by the member for North Sydney, the Treasurer, but just a couple of days later when the member for Maribyrnong, the Leader of the Opposition, stood to deliver his address in reply to the budget, we did not hear any plan. We just heard relentless negativity from the Leader of the Opposition, who is the chief complainant in this nation—the chief whinger. We did not hear any policies or any grand plan going forward to help the nation pay back the debt and deficit left to us after six years of hard Labor.

Bill 6 of the appropriations also allows nearly $29 million for programs to the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet to improve education, employment and community safety for Indigenous Australians. And that is so important. Senator Nigel Scullion, Minister for Indigenous Affairs, is a part of cabinet. He has that portfolio as a stand-alone portfolio position—something that this side of politics regards as being crucially important to the welfare of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in Australia.

A typographical error in Appropriation Bill (No. 6) 2014-15 has been identified which related to a cross-reference within that bill. We are getting on with the job of fixing the economy, fixing the debt and deficit legacy left to us by Labor, and we will do that because Australians deserve better. They certainly deserved better than what they got in the six years that Labor was in power.

Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the amendments moved by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Financebe agreed to.

Question agreed to.

Bill, as amended, agreed to.