Bills Digest no. 25 2007–08
Appropriation (Northern
Territory National Emergency Response)
Bill (No. 2) 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
Parliamentary Library
© Commonwealth of Australia
This work is copyright. Except to the extent of uses permitted
by the Copyright Act 1968, no person may reproduce or transmit any
part of this work by any process without the prior written consent
of the Parliamentary Librarian. This requirement does not apply to
members of the Parliament of Australia acting in the course of
their official duties.
This work has been prepared to support the work of the Australian
Parliament using information available at the time of production.
The views expressed do not reflect an official position of the
Parliamentary Library, nor do they constitute professional legal
opinion.
Feedback is welcome and may be provided to: web.library@aph.gov.au. Any
concerns or complaints should be directed to the Parliamentary
Librarian. Parliamentary Library staff are available to discuss the
contents of publications with Senators and Members and their staff.
To access this service, clients may contact the author or the
Library’s Central Entry Point for referral.
Back to top