Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I had hoped that the minister would do just that while the committee is deliberating, because the clause is a continuing appropriation of an amount unknown to the Senate or to the parliament. We do not know what the parliament is committing the taxpayer to, and we should know. Before moving on from the appropriation clause, the committee needs to know the limit of the appropriation that the government can assure the parliament of. If the government cannot make that assurance by giving us the sum, what will the mechanism be for coming back to the parliament to properly account for the appropriation that would then be made by the government? Or is it that the government is planning to simply appropriate money without reference to the parliament by dint of this clause, which is open-ended and has no limit to it?