Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

I present a supplementary explanatory memorandum to the bill. By leave—I move government amendments (1) and (2) as circulated together:

(1) Page 15, before Schedule 1, insert:

Schedule 1—Payments to or for the States, ACT, NT and local government

Note: See section 18.

(2) Schedule 1, page 15, omit the heading, substitute:

Schedule 2—Services for which money is appropriated

I am moving an amendment to Appropriation Bill (No. 6) 2013-2014 to insert a schedule that was omitted during the printing process. The error arose in the Office of Parliamentary Counsel's printing process for the bill, which resulted in the omission of schedule 1 to the bill. This schedule refers to two outcomes, one related to infrastructure payments and the other relating to Indigenous services and programs. This schedule sets out conditions for payments to the states, territories and local government by allowing designated ministers to make determinations on how the relevant amounts are to be paid.

The new schedule 1 covers only two of the programs in the bill, and this provides for a total of nearly $319 million, which is for payments to states, territories and local government. What will now become schedule 2 is already included in the bill and sets out the full $972 million of appropriations in the bill. As this schedule was misnumbered as schedule 1, the numbering will be corrected by the amendment.

Bills are occasionally introduced with typographical errors which arise during or prior to printing processes and, for this reason, some of these issues can be corrected administratively through an amendment by a presiding officer. However, in this case amendments are required to give effect to what the government intended. We are looking at the bill-proofing processes to guard against future such problems.

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