Bills Digest no. 24 2007–08
Appropriation (Northern Territory
National Emergency Response) Bill (No. 1) 2007-2008
WARNING:
This Digest was prepared for debate. It reflects the legislation as introduced
and does not canvass subsequent amendments. This Digest does not have
any official legal status. Other sources should be consulted to determine
the subsequent official status of the Bill.
CONTENTS
Passage history
Purpose
Background
Financial implications
Information on programs
Main provisions
Endnotes
Contact officer & copyright details
Passage history
Appropriation
(Northern
Territory National Emergency Response)
Bill (No. 1) 2007-2008
Appropriation
(Northern Territory
National Emergency Response) Bill (No. 2) 2007-2008
Date introduced:
7 August 2007
House:
House of Representatives
Portfolio:
Finance and Administration
Commencement:
In the case of both Bills, on Royal Assent
Links:
Appropriation
(Northern Territory National Emergency Response) Bill (No. 1) 2007-2008
Appropriation
(Northern Territory National Emergency Response) Bill (No. 2) 2007-2008
(There
are no Explanatory Memoranda for appropriation Bills.)
When
Bills have been passed they can be found at ComLaw, which is at http://www.comlaw.gov.au/.
To appropriate money from the Consolidated Revenue
Fund for various measures under the Government’s national emergency
response to protect Aboriginal children in the Northern
Territory.
The Appropriation (Northern Territory National Emergency
Response) Bill (No. 1) 2007-2008—hereafter Bill (No. 1)—and the
Appropriation (Northern Territory National Emergency Response) Bill
(No. 2) 2007-2008—hereafter Bill (No. 2)—appropriate funds for the Government’s
response to Ampe Akelyernemane Meke Mekarle “Little Children are
Sacred”: The Report of the Northern Territory Board of Inquiry into
the Protection of Aboriginal Children from Sexual Abuse, authored
by Pat Anderson and Rex Wild. [1] These Bills are two of several introduced to
implement the response.
The legal distinction
between the two Bills is that Bill (No. 1) appropriates funds for services
deemed to be for the ‘ordinary annual services’ of the government, while
Bill (No. 2) appropriates funds for other purposes, notably, capital
purposes and grants to the Northern Territory
under section 96 of the Constitution. The Senate is empowered, under
s. 53 of the Constitution, to amend Bill (No. 2) but not Bill (No.
1).
On 21 June 2007, the Hon. Mal Brough, Minister
for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, announced the
emergency response measures and a three-phase strategy of ‘stabilisation’,
‘normalisation’ and ‘exit’. [2] At a joint press conference, the Prime Minister
stated there was no estimate of the total cost but said:
It will be some tens of millions of dollars. It’s not
huge but there could be some costs in relation to the extra police.
There’ll be costs in relation to the medical examinations of children,
that is [a] very extensive task. [3]
Public debate on the
cost of the response followed the announcement, with estimates of up
to $5 billion to meet the costs of unmet demand in health, housing,
education and employment. [4] Although the Minister for Finance disputed such
estimates, the Treasurer was reported as saying the extra intervention
will be costly:
It’s having people on the ground, it’s having law enforcement
officers on the ground, it’s having medical specialists on the ground
and over a long period of time, it will be a very substantial cost.
[5]
The dispute over costs
is largely explained by different estimates for needs of the short-term
‘stabilisation’ phase or the longer-term ‘normalisation’ phase, and
failure to define what the term cost means. [6]
The total amount sought under Bill (No. 1) and Bill
(No. 2) is $587.3 million, which the Minister described as ‘money required
in 2007-08 for the stabilisation phase of the response’. [7]
More than half of
the total appropriation—$320.8 million—is departmental expenditure and
capital expenses to meet the costs of increased personnel, staff accommodation,
infrastructure upgrades and improved IT capacity across a number of
agencies. Major costs are:
-
$15.5 million in logistics support (Defence)
-
$7.4 million for police deployment (Australian
Federal Police)
-
$13.9 million for staff housing (FaCSIA)
-
$34.3 million for short-term staff accommodation
(FaCSIA)
-
$25.7 million for police deployments, police
stations and houses (FaCSIA)
-
$71.4 million for the Northern Territory
Emergency Response Taskforce Operations Centre, Business Managers
and volunteers (FaCSIA)
-
$25.9 million for infrastructure upgrades
(FaCSIA)
-
$14.5 million for child-protection workers
(FaCSIA)
-
$41.9 million for outback stores (Indigenous
Business Australia)
-
$10.1 million for staff deployment (Centrelink)
and
-
$14.3 million for improved IT capacity (Centrelink).
[8]
A total of $266.4 million is administered expenses
largely to implement the welfare payments measures ($52.2 million),
child-health-check teams, follow-up medical teams and drug and alcohol
response teams ($72.7 million), improve childhood support services and
fund alcohol diversionary programmes ($91.2 million), improve teacher
workforce capacity and increase the number of classrooms ($16 million)
and fund extra legal services and night patrols ($10.7 million).
There is, as yet, no commitment to funding beyond 2007–08,
nor is there any forecast of what time the ‘stabilisation’ phase might
require. Although the appropriations are largely directed at the immediate
need to fund the personnel and infrastructure requirements of the child-protection
measures, significant amounts are appropriated for implementing and
managing the welfare-payment reforms such as the Income Management Regime,
removal of all Remote Area Exemptions, Community Development Employment
Projects transition payments, Government Business Managers and providing
new or upgraded outback stores. These measures might be seen as longer-lasting
and flowing on to a ‘normalisation’ phase.
Although there is some funding aimed at achieving long-lasting
outcomes—such as funding for new classrooms, initiatives to retain teachers,
community health assessments, night patrols, ongoing jobs and training—a
greater funding commitment might be required to achieve ‘normalisation’
and ongoing improvements in outcomes in education, housing, health and
employment for Aboriginal peoples in the Northern Territory. Estimates
include $1.4 billion to provide housing, at seven persons per house,
(some communities now average 15 or 16 people per house, a family per
bedroom); [9] $460 million
extra over five years for health; $690 million over five years for remote
community schools and teachers, and $1.4 billion over five years for
converting CDEP jobs to ‘proper’ jobs. [10]
Additional background to the Bills can be found in
the interim Bills
Digest for the Northern Territory
national emergency response Bills 2007,
[11] and in the final
Bills Digests to be published in relation to those Bills.
Appropriation (Northern Territory National
Emergency Response) Bill (No. 1) 2007-2008
Bill (No. 1) appropriates a total of almost $502 million
across eight portfolios as set out in Schedule 1 of the Bill.
The main recipient is the Families, Community Services and Indigenous
Affairs portfolio—which will receive more than $212 million—followed
by the Employment and Workplace Relations portfolio, which will receive
more than $115 million. Schedule 1 also lists the individual agencies,
the amount each agency will receive, and the outcomes for which funds
are appropriated.
Appropriation (Northern
Territory National Emergency Response) Bill
(No. 2) 2007-2008
Bill (No. 2) appropriates a total of more than $85
million. As with Bill (No. 1), the main recipients are the Families,
Community Services and Indigenous Affairs portfolio (almost $49 million)
and the Employment and Workplace Relations portfolio (more than $21
million).
As with other Appropriation Bills, Bill (No. 1) and
Bill (No.2) lack details of the programs on which funds are to be spent.
The Minister, in his second reading speeches, mentioned some of these
programs. More information is contained in the Portfolio Supplementary
Estimates Statements, which can be found on the Budget website.
The following are links to the Portfolio Supplementary Estimates Statements:
Attorney-General’s
Defence
Education,
Science and Training
Employment
and Workplace Relations
Families,
Community Services and Indigenous Affairs
Health
and Ageing
Human
Services
Prime
Minister and Cabinet.
Appropriation (Northern
Territory National Emergency Response) Bill
(No. 1) 2007-2008
The provisions of Bill (No. 1) are virtually identical
to the provisions in the main ‘ordinary annual services’ appropriation
Bill for 2007-08, namely Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2007-2008 (Bills Digest).
The following focuses on differences between Bill (No. 1) and Appropriation
Bill (No. 1) 2007-2008.
Proposed section 3 contains a ‘standard’ definition
of Portfolio Supplementary Estimates Statements, defining them as the
documents tabled in the Senate or House of Representatives in relation
to the Bill.
Proposed section 6 deals with basic appropriations,
and appropriates $501,999,000 as set out in Schedule 1. Note
1 in this proposed section 6 refers to section 12 of the Appropriation
Act (No. 1) 2007-2008 and to proposed section 10, both of
which deal with Comcover receipts. In essence, section 12 provides that
when a Comcare payment is made on behalf of an agency, the funds available
to the agency must be increased by the amount of the payment so that
its funding level is not reduced. The effect of proposed section
10 is to apply Comcare payments to increasing the funding in Schedule
1 of Bill (No. 1) and to Schedule 2 of Bill (No. 2).
Appropriation (Northern
Territory National Emergency Response) Bill
(No. 2) 2007-2008
Similar to Bill (No. 1), the provisions of Bill (No.
2) are virtually identical to the provisions in the main annual appropriation
Bill for ‘other’ services for 2007-08, namely Appropriation Bill
(No. 2) 2007-2008 (Bills Digest).
The following focuses on differences between Bill (No. 2) and Appropriation
Bill (No. 2) 2007-2008.
Proposed section 3 contains a ‘standard’ definition
of Portfolio Supplementary Estimates Statements, defining them as the
documents tabled in the Senate or House of Representatives in relation
to the Bill.
Proposed section 6 deals with basic appropriations,
and appropriates $85,337,000 as set out in Schedule 2.
Similar to Bill (No. 1), Note 1 in proposed section
6 of Bill (No. 2) refers to section 12 of Appropriation Act (No.
1) 2007-2008 and to proposed section 10 of Bill (No. 1).
As with Bill (No. 1), Note 1 of Bill (No. 2) deals with Comcover receipts.
And as with Bill (No. 1), proposed section 6 of Bill (No. 2)
provides, in essence, that when a Comcare payment is made on behalf
of an agency, the funds available to the agency must be increased by
the amount of the payment so that its funding level is not reduced.
The effect is to apply Comcare payments to increasing the funding in
Schedule 2 of Bill (No. 2).
Endnotes
[2]. Quoted in Tim Colebatch,
‘Learning a purpose in life’, The Age, 26
June 2007.
[4]. Lenore Taylor ‘Crisis
plan could cost $5bn’, The Australian Financial Review,
27 June 2007.
[6]. There are at least three concepts of cost. First, there
is the addition to government spending resulting from the response.
The opportunity cost is what could be done with the resources devoted
to the response. Finally, there is what might be called the cost-accounting
measure, which seeks to measure the total cost of resources used, directly
and indirectly (for example, overhead costs), to implement the response.
[7]. Hon. M. Brough (Minister
for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs), ‘Second reading
speech: Northern Territory
National Emergency Response Bill 2007’, House of Representatives, Debates,
7 August 2007, p. 11.
[8]. All amounts are sourced from the Minister’s second reading
speeches for Bill (No. 1) and Bill (No. 2) and the second reading
speech for Bill (No.1) circulated by the House of Representatives Table
Office with the Bill.
[9]. In the 2007–08 Budget the Government committed $293.6 million
over four years to start up the new Australian Remote Indigenous Accommodation
(ARIA) Programme, additional to funding of $380 million per year for
Indigenous housing. This is not, however, committed specifically to
the Northern Territory.
Richard Webb and Coral Dow
13 August 2007
Economics and Social Policy Sections
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