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

I want to express the Australian Greens’ strong support for this motion. It is about quite a complicated issue, but it is aimed to make sure that the constitutional role of the Senate in the passage of legislation dealing with the expenditure of the money supplied by the Australian people is not subverted by special projects, one-off projects in particular, being put into the annual services budget of the government. A number of committees have met about this over the years, and there has been a general recognition that a motion of this sort would clear the matter up. I am very pleased the government has brought it forward. I also pay a word of tribute to former Clerk Harry Evans, who promoted such a motion for a good number of years. He would be very pleased to know that it is before the Senate and would want to see it passed as well. It is about a quite complicated matter, but it is one that is very firmly in the public interest and will help us all to understand budgetary matters much better in the future and to question government much more clearly about matters that are in budgets in times ahead, and that has to be good for democracy.

Question agreed to.