Opposition fears Estimates schedule will prevent proper Budget scrutiny

THE Northern Territory’s revamped Opposition won’t be disadvantaged by the slashing of the number of budget estimate sitting days and the NT Government denies scrutiny will suffer

THE Northern Territory’s revamped Opposition won’t be disadvantaged by the number of budget estimate sitting days being slashed from six to four and the NT Government denies scrutiny will suffer.

This is because the approximate number of hours allocated to budget estimates, which is about 57 hours, will remain the same and just be crammed into four days, Leader of Government Business Natasha Fyles said.

It comes as Acting Speaker Ngaree Ah Kit revealed the 14th parliament’s first ever sitting calendar, with the latest set of MLAs to head to the chamber on October 20.

The NT’s first budget since early 2019 will be introduced on November 10, with another sitting week lasting three days.

But Opposition leader Lia Finocchiaro launched a broadside against government for cutting the budget estimates sitting days from the usual six to four this year. Budget estimates will start on December 7 and go until December 10, with the budget scheduled to be voted on December 11, just two weeks before Christmas.

Ms Finocchiaro blasted Chief Minister Michael Gunner’s government for hindering scrutiny.

“Estimates has always been over six days and there is plenty of time in the sittings calendar to provide for that amount of scrutiny,” she said.

“The six-day estimates process allows the opposition to thoroughly scrutinise the budget, at a time when the government has been avoiding scrutiny, not delivering a budget not delivering a (Pre-Election Fiscal Outlook), not providing its election costings to Treasury.”

The NT government hasn’t released its budget because the federal government hasn’t released theirs, due to coronavirus, and thus there was no pre-election fiscal outlook.

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NT Labor didn’t provide election costings to Treasury because it argued any promises made had been in the coronavirus fiscal update and they had no other big spending commitments.

“We are scheduling longer days to get through the work, and that includes Estimates. So the CLP should be prepared to work long hours,” Ms Fyles said.