Jan McLucas (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Carers) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

  That these bills be now read a second time.

I seek leave to have the second reading speeches incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The speeches read as follows—

There are two Additional Estimates Appropriation Bills this year:

Appropriation Bill (No. 3) and Appropriation Bill (No. 4).

The Additional Estimates Bills seek authority from Parliament for the additional expenditure of money from the Consolidated Revenue Fund. The total additional appropriation being sought through these Bills this year is just over $1.27 billion.

These appropriations are sought to meet requirements that have arisen since the last Budget, as well as to take into account impacts on Australia’s economic and fiscal outlook from the global economy.

Despite pressures on the Australian economic and fiscal outlook, Australia continues to outperform the major advanced economies in terms of economic growth, as well as maintaining a relatively low unemployment rate and strong public finances.

Australia’s trading partners in the still fast growing Asian region are expected to record solid growth in aggregate, which is expected to have a positive impact on Australia’s economic growth prospects.

Turning now to Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2012-2013; the total appropriation being sought in this Bill is $600,797,000.

I would like to highlight certain appropriations relating to the delivery of the Government’s commitments.

Appropriation Bill (No. 3) proposes $133 million for the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, including $85 million towards the Support for the Child Care System program. The Government also proposes $48 million to support increased claims received before 5 December 2012 for assistance under the General Employee Entitlement and Redundancy Scheme.

$60 million is proposed for the Department of Immigration and Citizenship, including $37 million for offshore asylum seeker management purposes, visa compliance and status resolution, and $23 million mainly for visa and migration services and refugee settlement.

$59 million is proposed for the Attorney-General’s Department, including $47 million in relation to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, for associated operating costs, financial and legal assistance, and the Commonwealth’s appearance at the Royal Commission.

$56 million is proposed for the Department of Health and Ageing, including $26 million to support Tasmania’s health system, which will address challenges caused by Tasmania’s ageing population, high rates of chronic disease and constraints in the State health system, as well as to equip Tasmania to meet future health system challenges.

$19 million is proposed for the Australian Taxation Office in relation to targeted tax compliance activities and the transfer of lost superannuation member accounts to the Australian Taxation Office.

The total additional appropriation being sought in Appropriation Bill

(No. 4) 2012-2013 is $666,365,000, the more significant amounts of which I now outline.

$469 million is proposed for the Department of Defence as an equity injection to align Defence’s capital appropriations with its work program, including operations. As Defence explained at Senate Estimates, through the year its requirements for funding can change from capital to recurrent and from recurrent to capital. The additional capital amount will be offset mainly through a reduction in Defence’s departmental appropriation, which will occur through a separate process.

$50 million is proposed for the Attorney-General’s Department, including $27 million for capital expenditure in relation to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

$45 million is proposed for the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation to complete detailed engineering designs to construct a nuclear medicine manufacturing facility and a treatment plant which will produce a radiopharmaceutical material used in the treatment and diagnosis of heart diseases and cancers.

$32 million is proposed for the Department of Immigration and Citizenship in capital funding for expansions to the immigration detention network.

Ordered that further consideration of the second reading of these bills be adjourned to the first sitting day of the next period of sittings, in accordance with standing order 111.