Hansard

Bills

Treasurer's Advance Authorisation Bill 2025

Second reading

Resumed from 9 April.

Hon Tjorn Sibma (North Metropolitan Region) (1:38 pm): I rise as the lead speaker for the opposition on the Treasurer's Advance Authorisation Bill 2025. In short, this bill seeks to increase the Treasurer's advance limit for the present financial year by $1.93 billion, from the currently approved limit of $1.08 billion to $3.01 billion.

The Treasurer's advance authorises the Treasurer to draw funds from the consolidated account for amounts that were not factored into the budget appropriation acts. This allows for the release of central funding for items that exceed the appropriated budget or new items that have been determined as needing to be reflected in the current year that emerged after the budget bills were introduced to Parliament. It also provides for short-term repayable advances to agencies for working capital and similar purposes.

There is an automatic advance limit, which has already been legislated for, and that is set under section 29(1) of the Financial Management Act 2006. The ceiling for that automatic advance has been established as 3% of the amount appropriated in the previous financial year. In terms of the 2024–25 financial year, the year that we are in and will remain in for the next two months, that equates to the automatic ceiling being $1.08 billion. The purpose of a bill like this is to seek a further advance on that limit, which has already been established. This is not an unusual legislative mechanism. There is established precedent for this, but I will make some remarks around this becoming a regular feature of our legislative program and what that might actually intimate in terms of the capacity of government to accurately forecast public needs and the needs of agencies as they engage in the ordinary business of government. I should also say that the bill that we are contemplating now is the reason that Parliament was recalled so soon after an election. There is an urgent need, and I might just reflect upon how differently perhaps that reality has been conveyed.

With respect to this being an orderly process—a regular and reasonable mechanism for a government to avail itself of to meet forecast excesses and potential new expenditure—I would like to reflect that this is the 19th instance since 1997 that a Treasurer's Advance Authorisation Bill has been effectively enacted to assist the government meet its revised expenditure obligations. It was used on three or four occasions under the government of Richard Court. It was used on four or five occasions under the government of Hon Geoff Gallop and his successor, Mr Carpenter. The Barnett government used it only twice in the 2009 and 2010 years, but Treasurer's Advance Authorisation Bills have become a more common feature of the way that the government meets its expenditure needs under Premier Mark McGowan and the present Premier, the Member for Kwinana, Hon Roger Cook. There is nothing necessarily wrong with that, other than to observe that this is a feature of Labor government budget management processes more than has been evidenced under conservative governments, but that is not to make any derogatory, political or partisan point; it is just an observation of what the Hansard record demonstrates under the respective governments. What I have observed is the quantum of funds sought by way of these advanced instruments when related to the total size of the preceding appropriation. With these bills, context is important, because it seems to be regular practice now that that automatic 3% additional ceiling on top of the appropriation is regularly breached. One has to compute the quantum of the additional sum.

In going back and undertaking some rudimentary calculations, in the 2021–22 financial year, an additional sum, including the automatic advance plus the supplementary funding, represented an 8.5% increase on the previous appropriation limit. The following financial year the cumulative advance was worth 9.4% additional on top of the previous appropriated limit. The 2023–24 financial year, when we factor in the automatic ceiling with the additional authorisation amount, represented 10.5% of the previously appropriated figure. This appropriation, when assessed against the preceding whole-of-government appropriation and we add in the already advanced $1.08 billion plus this $3 billion which is sought, will get to around over 8% above the appropriated budget figure. What does that tell us? Possibly not much, but also possibly something significant. We can only determine what we are dealing with when we assess these appropriations or the seeking of an advance against the broader economic context. Since the budget was delivered last year, we have two core documents to rely upon. The first is the Government Mid-year Financial Projections Statement, which was issued in December last year, and the more current 2024–25 Pre-election Financial Projections Statement, which is obviously a mandatory reporting requirement initiated at the point when writs are issued.

If I reflect on the former document and understand it in attempting to seek the financial circumstances of the state government, one only needs to look at page 6, which summarises the key attributes of the government's revenue and how the revenue received or anticipated exceeds that previously budgeted for to get a sense of the true financial circumstances that the government enjoys. I have chosen the word "enjoys" deliberately because the state government is enjoying a bounty of revenue. Indeed, general government revenue has been revised up a total of $7.2 billion, or 4% across the four years to 2027–28 since the 2024–25 budget. As far as financial good news goes for any government—any western government particularly and a jurisdictional sort of provincial-style or state government like this one—this is probably world-beating good news in terms of revenue.

Where does that revenue find its source? Some of that revenue is consequent of higher taxation receipts. Higher taxation revenue is up $2.6 billion across the estimates:

… mainly due to:

a $1.4 billion increase in forecast total transfer duty collections, reflecting a higher than expected rise in property prices since Budget, driven by tighter than expected residential property market conditions;

To be fair, I am not necessarily convinced by the implication of that sentence that suggests that somehow the property market became increasingly tightened over the months of May to December last year in a way that is a significant order of magnitude different to the pre-existing circumstances. I also note that in coming weeks, this chamber will be debating the government’s Duties Amendment Bill 2025, which makes a range of superficially sensible changes to stamp duty thresholds and rates of payment. I will recall the appropriate terminology soon. But that amount, gifted over by a way of revising the stamp duty threshold another $50,000, is more than easily compensated for by the embarrassment of riches that are flowing into the government coffers as a result of stamp duty on residential property transactions. Point 2 states:

motor vehicle taxes (up $895 million), including higher vehicle licence duty (up $522 million) due to higher than expected sales of both new and used cars, and higher motor vehicle registrations (up $368 million) due to a higher than anticipated stock of vehicles and the strength of new car sales;

Insurance duty, the fee that we charge or levy people for taking out motor vehicle insurance and the like, is up $175 million:

… reflecting the flow-on impact of stronger than expected premium growth in 2023–24;

Add to that higher royalty income up $1.3 billion, higher sales of goods and services up nearly half a billion dollars plus higher Commonwealth grants. That is not an insignificant justification for this advance of $2.9 billion. That is a healthy-looking income strength. It is pretty damn healthy.

When we get back to first principles and undertake, why does anybody need an advance? The issue that the government is facing is not a revenue problem. There is either one or two problems of varying magnitude—I do not necessarily suggest that “problems” is a politically pejorative term either, but there are at least two vectors here. One is that there is something going wrong with forecasting, the government is making some financial decisions or its agencies are undertaking activities that they cannot undertake within budget parameters. Those issues are of not profound concern, but some concern. I want to contextualise that properly.

In the course of the briefing, which I thought was dutifully provided by officials, we asked the question: What is the justification for this advance or the key drivers of the need to increase the advanced level up and effectively to load up the pre-existing budget or increase the pre-existing appropriation to potentially 8% higher than the previously agreed amount? There is some useful guidance in the second reading speech as follows:

… a $469.7 million funding increase for Synergy, primarily to deliver the Commonwealth government’s electricity rebates to households and eligible small businesses; additional funding of $416.2 million for WA Health, mainly to support higher activity funding to address price-related pressures and service expansion in hospitals; and $321.9 million for the Department of Communities, primarily to meet increased demand for key services, particularly in the child protection system, as well as to deliver additional affordable and social housing dwellings.

With respect to the first point, there is only limited capacity or agency for the state government to exert itself on Commonwealth government executive decisions and Commonwealth flows of income. That needs to be accounted for because the money will flow through a central state agency to be delivered. Effectively the government is attempting to deal appropriately with a reporting difference.

As to the other two points there, which individually and together are quite a substantial amount of potential additional allocation, I reiterate my point made very briefly beforehand—that is, do we have a forecasting challenge within the agencies themselves? Are we going to continue to normalise the fact that the Department of Communities within a budget year may need an additional $320 million-odd to undertake its usual business practices or an additional $400 million-plus to WA Health to address price-related pressures? Presumably some of these pressures and plans for service expansion in hospitals had been known and been known for some time. But if we want to assess potentially notwithstanding a potential $500 million contingency amount embedded in this to potentially deal with any unforeseen natural disasters that might occur in this state over the next two months, the details are embedded in the two documents I referred to previously: the Government Mid-year Financial Projections Statement and the Pre-election Financial Projections Statement. When I reflect on appendixes 4 of both those documents, I note that there is some interesting material to consider. I will not go through line by line. There are other speakers on this bill—at least from the opposition side, if not from the crossbench. But this is a useful guidance document on where excess and new funding items have emerged. I will refer to page 103 of the Government Mid-year Financial Projections Statement because in addition to the tables, it puts in text, by government service area and agency, where the advance is likely be required. I could not have helped but had my attention directed to the section that deals with the Western Australian Electoral Commission. It states:

Item 9: Delivery of Services ($4 million), to implement and administer improvements to the security and integrity of the 2025 State Election, including the leasing of larger early polling places to secure election material ($2.4 million), and to implement legislated electoral reforms that include the requirement to provide candidates with the personal data of postal voting applicants, candidates to register How-to-Vote Cards, toilet facilities for campaign workers and the ability to enrol and vote on polling day, introduced as part of the Government’s Electoral Reform program ($1.6 million).

Unfortunately, there was not enough provision to purchase additional ballot papers or potentially to ensure that a sufficient number of volunteers were allocated to polling booths so that there were not inordinately and unreasonably long lines of people waiting to cast their ballot on the final day of voting.

I might just devote a little bit of attention to the funding of the Western Australian Electoral Commission, particularly in light of its performance most recently. There is, as members will be aware, an independent inquiry headed by His Honour Malcolm McCusker. Terms of reference have been established and I understand that that inquiry will take submissions up until 9 May. If there was one institutional bit of core capacity for a state—I am talking not about a state government, but about a state—to get right, it was the operations of the independent Western Australian Electoral Commission. We have all observed and made commentary either privately or publicly on the standard of the conduct of that election by not only the Electoral Commission, but also the alleged services provided by the outsourced firm PersolKelly. I do not want to foreshadow in too much detail what is likely to be a significant feature of my Address-in-Reply speech later this week other than to say this, as I think the context is worth establishing: significant changes were made to Western Australia's electoral laws and electoral system.

There were at least four occasions when that occurred, and two of them were decidedly significant. The first change was obviously the dismemberment, or the demolition, of regional representation in this chamber and a decision to move towards a whole-of-state electorate. That was not an insignificant change. Anecdotally, that complicated the declaration of the result for the Legislative Council or was used as an alibi to justify why it took so long. The second of the four most significant changes were the changes wrought by the still honourable but now retired ex–Attorney General and Minister for Electoral Affairs, Hon John Quigley. This was the establishment of the mandatory use of state campaign accounts, the determination that there will be limits on campaign expenditure, the need to register how-to-vote cards, the need for almost real-time disclosure of financial political contributions and the like. All of these were obviously resource-intensive and complicated measures for an agency that effectively runs on a skeleton staff to administer in addition to its regular duties.

I was not the only person asking these questions over the committee table: Is the agency going to be appropriately resourced for these significant chains? Has the government forecast what is likely to be required? What is it going to need in terms of IT infrastructure, the build-out of other processes, finding consultants and additional staff and the like to make sure that, come the issuing of writs in 2025, the Western Australian Electoral Commission and its staff are well oiled and this process can work seamlessly? I had my doubts at that stage. I had two early warnings. The first was the Electoral Commission's capacity to undertake a timely count of the preceding local government elections in 2023 and the other was the implementation of the online disclosure processes, which came into effect from 1 July last year. Members who have real niche interests in these issues might recall that an unprecedented letter was signed by the State Secretary of the WA Labor Party, the State Director of the Liberal Party, the State Director of the National Party and the Co-Convenor of Greens WA basically saying that the government has this process wrong and that they cannot get key questions answered.

This was drawn to this chamber's attention in September last year. That was a function that the Western Australian Electoral Commission inherited by dint of the passage of legislation. In debate across the chamber on that bill, it was made clear that the key point of advocacy made by the Western Australian Electoral Commission about the legislation was the treatment of postal vote applications and a few other ancillary issues. But it had never sought to impose expenditure limits. It had not necessarily got itself wrapped up in issues about misinformation and disinformation and how those great sins of public policy might be obviated or dealt with by way of registering how-to-vote cards and the like. Much of the content of that bill emerged out of the feverish cogitations of the ex-Attorney General. It was not something that the Electoral Commission itself was organisationally or culturally geared up for anyway, and it was certainly not resourced appropriately to deal with it. I thought that was a very early sign of challenges that that organisation was facing. I will leave that issue where it is because there is a lot more to say about it.

There is also in the midyear review some intimations of the need for additional funding for the Western Australia Police Force and the Department of Justice, both in the domain of the delivery of services, which is effectively their recurrent spend. I will make reference to these two points about the Western Australia Police Force on page 188 of the Government Mid-year Financial Projections Statement:

Item 66: Delivery of Services ($51.1 million), mainly to address operational service priorities …

It also includes a direct reference to:

… an uplift in capability to respond to incidents in relation to the Family Violence Legislation Reform Act 2024 ($2.1 million) …

A similar reference is made in item 68 for the Department of Justice, which states:

… Delivery of Services … implementation of the Family Violence Legislation Reform Act 2024 ($3.6 million).

This was the bill that made overdue reforms to the treatment of family violence offences in the state of Western Australia, and the chamber need not be reminded of the litany of tragedies that occurred last year through deplorable criminal acts of family and domestic violence. But on this reading, those two funding amounts seem tied to a particular issue—that is, the electronic monitoring of offenders. Members might recall the debate around the issue of convicted perpetrators of family or domestic violence being required, as part of their release conditions, to be monitored, if their offences fall within certain thresholds of gravity. I recall that I and other members asked about capacity, what it would cost to lease these items, whether we were equipped and whether we had a network to monitor these people. I recall that there was, effectively, a "get out" provision for sentencing magistrates to recognise that there might be circumstances, in this state, in which a perpetrator lives in a really remote regional location where a monitoring device would effectively become inoperable or redundant because it could not be monitored. We do not have the telemetric relay services necessary to monitor the whereabouts of such individuals in real time. I think there was a sharp intake of breath, but also to some degree a recognition that sometimes, in a state this vast, there are practical problems that sometimes become insurmountable or are very difficult to impose blanket or pro forma solutions upon.

An unfortunate set of circumstances emerged in the last couple of weeks in which a sentencing magistrate did not order a perpetrator to use one of these devices. To the best of my recollection, although the perpetrator lived in regional Western Australia, he did not live in a remote, distant or isolated part of the state. Part of the reason for the magistrate's decision to not mandate that this person wear a fixed monitoring device was that the device could not be monitored by the agency responsible. That is an appalling outcome in its own right, and it does very little to assuage the absolutely genuine fears of victims of this kind of offending who live outside metropolitan Western Australia. I feel additional frustration about these sorts of issues, because they had been so well canvassed and forecast in debate in this house. Sometimes you have briefings with officials, and your job is not just to ask curly questions and attempt to make yourself the smartest person in the room, because that kind of approach normally ends in failure. What you attempt to do is to identify gaps in the logic.

I am on record as having said countless times in this house that it is very easy to pass a bill and claim that it represents reform. Reform is where the rubber hits the road, and I have found, after 25 years in public policy of one kind or another, that in respect of agencies of state, whether they are departments, statutory authorities or even local government bodies, policy fails where the rubber hits the road, a lot of the time. Some of the questions are not wicked problems; some of them are just very logical, linear kinds of issues. If you are going to make a change to sentencing provisions and it is likely that an additional cohort of 500 or 600 people are likely to have to wear these kinds of devices as a parole condition or the like, what are the factors we need to consider to ensure that that measure will provide public safety? We need to actually ensure that the intent of the legislation is given every chance it can be given to succeed. Unfortunately, in recent times we have seen something that I think could frankly have been completely foreseeable, manageable, predictable and ameliorable through an earlier budget allocation, and we could have avoided a dreadful outcome taking place for the victim and for the justice system overall.

Context is important. I know that I have struck something of a negative and despondent tone, but I have not done so to effectively colour this bill unnecessarily. This bill will seek to enact processes that are positive and meritorious, one of which I will reflect upon now. It was included in appendix 4 of the Pre-election Financial Projections Statement. That appendix is, effectively, additional to the additional expense items that were identified in the midyear review, two months earlier. I will reflect upon this in a positive sense, particularly now that I have recently become shadow Minister for Training and Workforce Development. It is item 65, "Delivery of services", for which there is $42 million, in addition to the $39.9 million supplementation detailed in the earlier midyear review. A further $2.1 million has been approved to support the establishment of a defence centre of excellence at South Metropolitan TAFE.

My colleagues and I are very big supporters of Western Australia's growing defence industry. I am pleased that, over the course of probably the last 10 years or so, there has been more policy focus on and advocacy for the capability of Western Australian defence for security-facing small to medium-sized enterprises, whether they operate in communications, land domains, sea domains or human performance factors. That is actually positive to see, but it is also positive that the government has, I think, done the right thing in identifying that if this is to be a growing industry because—whether or not the AUKUS trilateral arrangement works in the way that the original framers of that agreement would have liked it to work, or whether there might be some hiccups or difficulties in implementing that scheme—we are, nevertheless, living in a time of heightened geopolitical sensitivity. There is a need and, I think, a reasonable desire for the government to seek to support diversification of the Western Australian economy, and the defence industry is a place to look at and to make some sensible investments in. One of the fundamental investments we need for any industry, but particularly a new and emerging industry that has ancillary benefits for other domains, particularly in terms of the way in which remote operations work on mining, oil, and gas sites, is to ensure that we have a trained workforce.

The only way to do that is to train the people to do that and to advocate careers as diverse as the following example. Members would see cartography and steel fabrication as the sorts of industries that have a direct defence application, but we can potentially identify more imaginative things. I have had the pleasure of visiting a firm called TraumaSim, which provides simulation mannequins for armies and police forces when practicing responding to battlefield casualties or other catastrophic events. It is not for the squeamish. It is definitely a Western Australian firm worthy of our support. That small workforce has utilised the skill sets of ex-students of the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts. They are used to applying make-up and using mannequins. The CEO of the company was an ex-registered nurse. There is an ability to merge different domains, techniques and specialisations in new and interesting ways that are innovative and imaginative. TraumaSim does work all around the world. It is a small Western Australian outfit. I hope that those concepts and opportunities will magnify, consolidate and be normalised through the establishment of such centres, which the Treasurer's advance has been sought for. But it is not all fire and brimstone and it is not all me beating my chest from the pulpit; the government needs to address some issues in its overall financial management. It has been the beneficiary of some wonderful times. It has also made some sensible decisions.

I reinforce my earlier point that I am beginning to be somewhat concerned when we see a pattern of behaviour emerging that effectively normalises this as a sort of regular feature of debate in this chamber and a regular feature of the way budgets are managed. I presume it will continue. I do not necessarily have a problem with that, unless it becomes an instrument upon which too much political and economic reliance is put.

I also note one outlier and one omission before I round out my contribution. If not in this budget—I presume it will not be in this budget, which comes down in May—I expect to potentially see some reference in appendix 4 of the next Government Mid-year Financial Projections Statement to the proposed buyback of the grain freight network. I will make some very brief remarks. Transport is not my portfolio area. If the government follows with this, it will have enormous financial implications for the state at a time when it is embarking upon the design and future build of the mega project Westport. I thought the timing of the government writing to Arc Infrastructure effectively about a potential buyback on the eve of the writs being issued in an election was interesting and concerning. Some criticism was made—I have heard it all before—about the desirability and functioning of the current contract, which is a feature of the privatisation of the network some 20 years ago. If not in this budget and then not in the next midyear review, if the government is absolutely determined to buy back the rail network, I cannot see how it will get away with it for under $5 billion. That is an enormous amount of money, added to the potential construction cost of Westport of around $7 billion. Frankly, I would be pleasantly surprised if it comes close to $7 billion. I do not necessarily think that is feasible for this bill but these are the kinds of features and excesses we see in the off-budget year financial decision-making of the government—issues that will have a longer term impact on the state's finances and the state's operating position in a period of time, if not towards the end of the current estimates period, then certainly not so long after it.

I wish to conclude by reinforcing the fact that the opposition supports the bill. It is a reasonable bill. In any event, it is an appropriation bill. It is not right or just for the house of review to block supply. We are not doing that. Despite the lamentations of others in their final addresses, we are still sensible people; we actually understand the challenges of running multibillion-dollar state budgets and dealing with emerging issues and changed sets of parameters. I will reflect insofar as it is wise on the conduct of debate in the other house and acknowledge the contribution of the shadow Treasurer, my friend the member for Cottesloe, Sandra Brewer. Before she gave her inaugural speech, by virtue of Parliament being recalled to deal with the government's financial needs, she was obligated to respond to the very issue on behalf of the opposition. As a new member, I thought she made some reasonable observations about the practice, protocol and, dare I say, courtesy extended. It was nice to listen to because it was an individual new member's fresh perspective on the way things get done. My friend Hon Dan Caddy is almost on the verge of hysterics as I am making these reflections. I think it was an appropriate point. If we stand back and disentangle ourselves from the personalities, we could ask whether she was making a reasonable point. Where else in corporate life ordinarily, considering that is her background, would someone be asked to effectively authorise a $3 billion advance with 24 hours' notice? The answer is probably nowhere, but welcome to Parliament!

I did not mention the fact that I once had to lead the opposition charge on the reform of the Planning and Development Act, some 300 pages long. The advisers briefed me and they had not even printed the final version of the bill. New, unexplored and interesting challenges await my friend the shadow Treasurer as she deals with the Treasurer and attempts to do so in a constructive way. I do not think any of the contributions of opposition members in that chamber were untoward or gratuitous, aside from the usual political flummery. Aside from some moments of clear substance from the Treasurer in response, I detected the usual technique of shooting the messenger, demonising anybody who has made the mistake of once being friendly, extending the hand of human kindness or even endorsing previous financial decisions that she had made; it is used against them. I thought that was an unbecoming contribution from the Treasurer. It was absolutely beneath her standards.

She is a very powerful and experienced politician. She is now at a stage at which she can rise—she might wish to rise further—above the petty and vindictive personal insults. I do not think it reflected very well on her, Minister for Regional Development. That is my personal assessment. The member is a person who conducts himself with utmost propriety and dignity in this chamber. I sometimes wish his counterparts in the other house would follow the member's lead. I have attempted to conclude my contribution on a positive note. I look forward to future positive contributions that are grounded in substance and the ability to deal with questions with a straight bat. That would be absolutely welcome.

There is more to be said about the financial management of this state and the kinds and purposes of advances that are being sought in this bill. I will leave it to my colleagues to pursue their interests and make some broader observations about the state's financial management, other than to say that it is good to see some retrospective clarity from the government and retrospective transparency about how the money is spent. I wish that the government would apply that principle in a more forward leaning way in respect of the cost of establishing a National Rugby League team in this state or the true cost of the establishment of the new racetrack, for example, but I will leave it there.

Hon Dr Steve Thomas (South West Region) (2:32 pm): Thank you, Deputy President, for the opportunity to make a few comments on the Treasurer's Advance Authorisation Bill 2025. I am glad to see that representatives of Treasury are here for a relatively in-depth discussion, I suspect, on exactly where we are going with this. Treasury has always been considered to be something of an arcane art, but I will try to simplify this as much as I possibly can. Members will be pleased to know that I will seek to table an occasional chart just to give a fuller explanation.

Hon Darren West: Be sure to flash it this way

Hon Dr Steve Thomas: I will make sure that I point it in Hon Darren West's direction so he realises what is going on.

To continue on from the work of Hon Tjorn Sibma on this, I guess the first question is: What are Treasurer's advance authorisation bills and why are they used? The simple answer is that every dollar expended from the state revenue has to be authorised by Parliament, and Parliament does that through appropriation bills. Those outlying expenditures that are not covered by the initial appropriation bills—every budget has appropriation bills—must be done in a different way. They can be done by an extraordinary appropriation bill, but the most common mechanism is a Treasurer's advance authorisation bill. That process changed dramatically in 2006 with the upgrading of the Financial Management Act. At that time, I was in the other place—that place that will not be mentioned and cannot be named. I have had a bit of practice at it over the years. If the government has to authorise this expenditure, why is it bringing in a Treasurer's advance authorisation bill? It is because the government planned for expenditure through a financial year that was not covered in that financial year's appropriation bills. Obviously, if it is in another, further, financial year, the government can put it in a further financial appropriation bill.

What happens? Generally, governments get a budget through. Budgets generally come down in May. Election years are an exception because they often come down as late as September or October. I think that the government being able to put its budget together by June may have given away its expectation of the election result. There might have been just a touch of hubris and expectation among government members thinking that they could get the budget in place by the middle of June. Either that or Treasury has done an amazingly outstanding job. I am sure that the parliamentary secretary will be praising it in the fullness of time. Despite being unsure of the result, Treasury has managed to get the budget process finalised a mere month after it would normally be dropped in a non-election year, so well done to Treasury for that.

Why do we need a treasurer's advance authorisation bill? It is because there is additional expenditure. There are two components that we need to look at. Are we looking at a Treasurer's advance bill because, for the most part, we have had an increase in demand for some strange reason? That was the reason given by this government, or the previous incarnation of this government, when we went through the COVID period and had absolutely significant Treasurer's advance authorisation bills. That was at least partially true, so that is not bad; there was an additional expense around COVID and obviously the opposition supported that all the way through.

The other component, of course, is the supply end. We do not tend to see Treasurer's advance bills when the government does not have a significant amount of additional money to put into them. We find over time that when looking at budget deficits or very tight budgets, obviously, it is unusual to have a Treasurer's advance authorisation bill. The second half of the argument, of course, is that when there are massive budget surpluses, the reasons for which we will come to in a little bit—I know members would be disappointed if we did not—we have the opportunity for additional expenditure. Hon Tjorn Sibma raised some of these previous Treasurer's advance bills. I have them in graph form for members. With the permission of the Deputy President, I seek to table my own work on Treasurer's advance bills in tabulated form and Treasurer's advance bills versus surplus or deficits in graph form.

Leave granted.

(See paper 169.)

Hon Dr Steve Thomas: Thank you. I have a copy for the parliamentary secretary as well. I am sure that the Treasury gentlemen will be very interested to check and make sure that I have not made a miscalculation anywhere.

I think it is most pertinent in graphic form. I know that Hon Darren West is interested in this, so I will wave it in his direction before I pass it around. The green line is the surplus or deficit over a base of zero compared with the number of Treasurer's advance bills. As members will notice, effectively, when it is close to the mark with not much surplus or the government is in deficit, there are zero Treasurer's advance bills. Obviously, funnily enough, the government has no additional money. Treasury tells people that it is a very complicated process, but I think we can apply some fairly simple rules to this part of the process. I think we would have a few concerns if Treasury were putting in a significant number of Treasurer's advance bills at a time when the government is already operating in deficit. Obviously, we have periods of time when greater revenues come in. I am sure members will be very keen to look at these charts in detail when they download them, so I will not wave them around too much. But members will notice that as part of the process there was a significant impact towards the end of what I call the "Eric Ripper economic boom". He is a former Treasurer who, just quietly, I thought did a very good job. I have always had a lot of respect for Hon Eric Ripper.

Hon Darren West: A country boy from Nyabing.

Hon Dr Steve Thomas: I will not hold that against him. It is almost as good as the South West, honourable member.

I think he did a reasonable job. The beginning of the boom started in around 2001 or 2003 and would have continued except for the global financial crisis, which flattened it by only one year. Members have all seen my previous charts on this. The GFC flattened the boom for one year in 2008 but the boom continued almost to 2013. When we had the beginning of the Hon Eric Ripper boom, we saw a significant increase in the number of Treasurer's advance bills. Remember, members, that before 2006 we had a simplified process. We did not have the Financial Management Act 2006 in place and Treasurer's advances were basically limited to $300 million. When we look at it in absolute amounts, from 2001 to 2007, there were six amounts approved above the limit of $300 million each year, which is how the legislation restricts the government.

The government could have $300 million extra in that period of time under the former Treasurer Hon Eric Ripper. In 2006, at the end of that period of time, with changes introduced by Hon Eric Ripper, we see the introduction of the Financial Management Act 2006, which introduced that automatic 3% increase on top of all the appropriations for the previous year. I am not going to suggest we need to go into the committee stage on the bill, parliamentary secretary, because I think the Treasury officials will be happy to confirm that that 3% applies to the total of all appropriation bills, including any special appropriations that occurred in the previous financial year. That 3% looked like a fairly good number in 2006. When members read the document that I have tabled—the Treasurer's advance bills in tabulated form—they will see that $300 million in each of the latter six years of the Labor government as a percentage of total expenditure are interesting, because that total expenditure was going to be approximately equated to appropriations because everything expended has to be appropriated.

As an example, in those years—bear in mind that budgets were far tighter—the percentage of total expenditure for the $300 million excess was 2.8% in 2001–02, and the subsequent years were 2.6%, 2.5%, 2.3%, 2.2% and 2.4%. They were all sitting basically between 2% and 3% of overall expenditure. Obviously, when the then Treasurer Hon Eric Ripper said, "Let's have a set amount by which a government can extend without having to necessarily go back and have another act of Parliament to approve that", a 3% variance was put in place. It makes sense if they are all between 2% and 3%. It is very sensible. As I said, I have a lot of respect for Hon Eric Ripper. Of course, in opening it up, I think Treasury suddenly worked out that this was going to be very interesting because a government might want to spend more than that if it were to suddenly find that its revenues were going through the roof. It would therefore allow it to put in significantly more expenditure. A government does not necessarily want to hold that expenditure over to a future year, to a future budget, or to do what it probably should do with it, particularly if it is an adherent of Keynesian economics, and put it into debt reduction. The government wants to expend it while it has got it. This is one of the problems that we are going to have. Obviously, in my view, that is what occurs.

When we look, in chart form, at the years 2007–08, 2008–09 and 2009–10, before we get to the start of crash and the correction of the iron ore price under the previous "conservative" government, there is a significant number of Treasurer's advanced bills being put forward. I think it is as simple as the government having a lot more money to be able to spend, and it simply wanted to spend it. The government went through the Treasury process. Treasury goes, "Well, this is the appropriate process. If you want to squeeze more expenditure into this financial year because the iron ore price is high", which it was—it was not as high as it eventually became under this government, but it was high—"that's what you do." From $300 million limitations in 2007–08, the total amount of expenditure approved by Treasurer's advance bills was $750 million, $891.2 billion and $911.15 billion. At that stage, those three numbers represent, as a percentage, 4.5%, 6.3% and 5.4% of total expenditure. We went from a range of 2% to 3% to basically 4.5% to 6.5%. In my view, that set the trend.

In the central years of that government, particularly around 2013—obviously, as members will see in the charts for 2013–14 and 2014–15—there were significant budget deficits and expenditure was very high. There is basically no capacity to use a Treasurer's advance bill when we would have to assume that that is probably economically risky. That does not occur. The government could not put one of those in place, but we did then get to the next boom. Members will remember, because I know we have spoken about this ad nauseam, that the next economic boom started in about February 2019, and to some degree we are still in it. It is based entirely on the iron ore price, which hit a peak of about US$235 a tonne. That is when the next boom came. When we look at the Treasurer's advance bills put forward by this Labor government, be it under either Premier McGowan or Premier Cook, the amount of money appropriated in each of the years 2021–22 through to the estimate for the current $1.66 billion was $1.44 billion, $2.32 billion, $3.1 billion and $3 billion. As a percentage of total expenditure, that was 5.4%, 4.2%, 6%, 7.5% in 2023–24 and 6.6%. Those numbers are interesting just in themselves.

For the most part, the government could probably get on some high moral ground and say that 4.5% to 6% is roughly equivalent to previous governments, and that is what we have done. It could probably legitimately argue, and particularly for the early years of 2021–22 leading into 2022–23, there was a reasonable proportion of COVID expenditure in those couple of years, so perhaps some of that was unexpected. The government probably should use something of an explanation though for 2023–24. A $3.1 billion total amount, $2.1 billion above the 3% limit for 7.5% of the total expenditure of the state in that year I think is worthy of some explanation. I knew my claim that they are extraordinary circumstances resulted in that, but I would be very interested to know precisely what.

In a nutshell, which is probably appropriate, why do we have Treasurer's advance authorisation bills? If we narrow it down to its simple and most basic level, it is because we can, because we have got enough money in the bank, because the iron ore price has been doing very well, thank you very much. The government has a fair amount of money in its coffers. The money bin is full, the Premier is still playing Scrooge McDuck—thought I would pop that one in there for memory's sake.

Hon Darren West interjected.

Hon Dr Steve Thomas: Scrooge McDuck, back for a section—no insult intended to those with Scottish ancestry in the chamber, Acting President.

We had the original Scrooge McDuck. We have now got, I guess it is not quite as good, not quite the $6 billion surpluses, but the current Premier might be a bit Scrooge McDuck-light, unfortunately. He would probably like to be equivalent to the original Scrooge McDuck—$6 billion surpluses are very nice—but the current one is looking at more like $3 billion surpluses. I will tell you what, that is still not bad. If someone looked at most states in Australia or the forward projections of the Commonwealth or perhaps the forward projections of the United States budget, they would probably want to be in charge of this jurisdiction compared with all of those. But in the end, honourable members, that is a Treasurer's advance authorisation bill. It is a recognition of the opportunity to spend more money because the government has more money to spend, and it can think of something that it would like to spend it on. The argument will always come back, as government always does: Is the expenditure that it proposes critically important or not so much? Governments justify it, as they always do. The previous conservative federal government spent hundreds of millions of dollars on JobSeeker and JobKeeper during the COVID shutdowns. It certainly saved jobs, I think in particular JobKeeper. But was it worth adding $600 billion to the federal debt line in the end? That would probably be an interesting debate over the fullness of time as future generations try to work out whether that sort of extraordinary expenditure was good expenditure when they are paying it back and all the people who got the benefit from it are long since passed away at that point.

It is an incredibly interesting debate. It is interesting to see where politics is going. We effectively throw a lot of money at people so they do not suffer anymore. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I suspect it depends upon who pays the bill, when we get down to it. But that is why we have Treasurer's advance bills—we have more money in the bank generally than we thought we were going to. Let us look at the chart. I think the chart is quite telling in its final years. The graphic shows the amount of money in Treasurer's advances going up two to three times its historical levels. Why is that? It is actually a lag from budget surpluses going up two to three times the historical maximums. In fact, there is a lag point there, as we would kind of expect.

As a government gets more comfortable with the massive amounts of money that it has, its massive revenues and its $12 billion worth of iron ore royalties compared with an average of five to six, and it becomes accustomed to this massive amount of money, it feels more comfortable about spending it. I think a Treasurer's advance bill debate should be a bit more about what the government is spending the money on rather than the mechanism of the Treasurer's advance. The Treasurer's advance is quite simple. As I said, the government has a lot of money and needs a mechanism to spend it. Here is a simple mechanism. When it does not have any money or it is in deficit, we do not get a Treasurer's advance bill. When it has lots of money, we get very big Treasurer's advance bills. It is not a difficult connection to make. The debate, in my view, is really then very much about whether we are spending this amount of money on the correct things.

Now, one of the joys of winning the election—not an experience I have had despite several attempts, Acting President (Hon Dr Brian Walker), but I am eternally the optimist—the government gets to put its imprimatur on where expenditure goes. It gets to say it thinks it should go in this direction and some of those things and the expenditure, I think, is quite reasonable.

I know the parliamentary secretary is diligently making notes, so, hopefully, we will avoid the committee stage, but we will see how we go.

One of the biggest contributions to the expenditure that this government has promulgated as a part of this process was towards half a billion dollars of effectively transferred or throughput money from the federal government in relation to energy supplements. I will find the exact phrase here at some point. I think Hon Tjorn Sibma has already referenced it once, but just to be certain that we get the wording right, page 184 of the Government Mid-year Financial Projections Statement states:

Item 17: Electricity Generation and Retail Corporation (Synergy) ($378.5 million), primarily to facilitate payment of the Commonwealth Government's electricity rebates to households and eligible small business customers …

We are all welcoming that, as we welcomed, although we raised a cynical eyebrow, the state's version of this. We can do the same thing with the federal government's version and welcome it at the same time. I do not know if the government's payment to the state has yet passed through the state's books, but it might be a question for the parliamentary secretary to ask her Treasury officials at some point. She might be able to give us a response about when the state expects to receive the offset payment for the payments that are getting passed through. They may already be in a holding account, one of the special purpose accounts or, indeed, in the consolidated account already. Because it goes through the state and we are expending it, we still have to include it in a Treasurer's advance bill. We have to include it in some form of appropriation bill. Given the timeframe, I am not sure when the federal government's electricity credits actually start to roll out. If the government had a budget going out in June, it might have been able to squeeze it into that. But anyway, I understand that the government is making sure by throwing it through the Treasurer's advance.

One of the things to look at in a Treasurer's advance bill and one of the things about economics at a state level is that this is an expenditure of the state which is also at some point a payment to the state. When we look at what we are spending the consolidated account on, I hope that we would see that this is a net neutral exercise if we are managing the federal account. It would be interesting to see whether there is a cost associated with the state. If it is not net neutral, maybe Treasurer's officials can let us know that as well. It should be a net neutral process.

I must admit, like Hon Tjorn Sibma, I had something of a laugh about page 183 of the midyear review, which refers to the Western Australian Electoral Commission. It states:

Item 9: Delivery of Services ($4 million), to implement and administer improvements to the security and integrity of the 2025 State Election, including the leasing of larger early polling places to secure election material …

I hope it has the polling places in place. I think it struggled to get the people to operate the poll in place or the actual voting slips in inadequate supply. Perhaps $4 million was a little underdone in terms of an investment in the 2025 state election. I do not think the Labor Party is any more pleased with the process of the count and the slowness of it as anyone else. We had reports of polling booths unable to conduct counts on the night because they could not get staff to actually count. I have to say a lot of polling booths were operated by people who, in my view, were inadequately trained. As someone who was standing out the front offering how-to-vote cards, I had a couple of arguments with polling booth workers who were incorrectly telling people how to vote. That certainly happened and we had to find someone within the group who understood. Eventually, people would find somebody. I will not name him completely, but Bobby at Bunbury prepoll did an excellent job of explaining to his co-workers how voters had to still fill in all the boxes from 1 to 8 or 1 to 9 in the lower house because they were not sure. There was obviously some work to be done and maybe $4 million was perhaps an underestimate, but let us see what the committee does in relation to that.

I am going to ask the parliamentary secretary a question that I am absolutely confident she cannot or will not answer, but I am going to throw it out there anyway because I think it is important to get it on the record. Obviously, nearly $400 million is going to Synergy. That was simply for the passthrough of the federal government's subsidies—its election bribe, if you will, perhaps phrased a different way. Synergy, though, in several recent accounts asked for significantly more than that. Synergy asked for money because it was bleeding, haemorrhaging, in terms of being able to sell energy at a higher price than its cost of supply. We will be discussing this, presumably, with the Leader of the House, who covers the Minister for Energy, I think. This will be a fairly consistent debate going along this year in questions. Obviously, the Economic Regulation Authority holds down the price of energy for domestic consumers. We have seen price rises in the 2.5% to 3% mark for some time. I know the government does not want to get hurt politically by seeing significant price rises. Certainly the federal government has made some errors in that regard and the state government, at least, has not promised that power bills will go down, so that is a reasonable outcome.

Synergy asked, as we are told, for a significant amount of money beyond that order of about $400 million to stem the haemorrhaging of losses occurring in Synergy in trying to break even. Synergy has dramatically put up the prices of energy to small businesses. Most small businesses in the contestable market have seen their prices for consumption go up by somewhere between 25% and 40% from their last contract to their current contract. A lot of those are two years. A 25% to 40% increase over a couple of years is a massive impost on small businesses.

The government is doing it because it is haemorrhaging money in Synergy. I suspect that the parliamentary secretary is not going to be in a position to tell us whether Treasury opposed the request for additional funds for Synergy. I imagine, at a guess, that she will claim some form of cabinet-in-confidence about that, but we will try to dig away at that because energy prices are going to be a significant issue going forward. As the government's energy transition gradually staggers and falls about two years from now, this is going to be a pretty significant debate. When the government has massive revenues, as it does—I feel like I had better mention Scrooge McDuck again—this might have been the opportunity to try to put a correction into the bottom line and business of Synergy. Obviously, the government has not seen fit to do that, and I think that is a real shame.

The number that the then Minister for Energy was reported as asking to come out of the consolidated fund was over double that $400 million—so, up towards $1 billion of additional subsidy being required for Synergy. I would very much like to know why that is not part of the Treasurer's Advance Authorisation Bill 2025 that we see before us today, because it is not. It will come. The piper—another Scottish reference, Acting President (Hon Dr Brian Walker)—always gets paid one way or another, and that is going to happen in this case. Either there will be significant subsidies going back into Synergy or Synergy will go bust earlier and leave the government with a greater debt and a greater hole to try to fix. Either way, this is going to be a highly expensive exercise. It is the old adage of an ounce of prevention being worth a tonne of cure. Some expenditure at this point to try to rectify that would be fairly useful.

As I close, I have some comments on the general state of the economy in Western Australia. Once again, the Labor Party should be kneeling before the altar of iron ore in Western Australia because it continues to underpin the budget of this state. It probably now contributes slightly less than a quarter of state revenue. We are getting back to $10 billion instead of $12 billion in the budget. Iron ore remains the greatest contributor. It is massive. It is probably also the reason we have the level and degree of Treasurer's advance authorisation bills that we do. As we have said before, this is very much related to having the money to spend. What this government did is not new, and I have acknowledged it a dozen times in economic debates. This government budgeted for a low iron ore price on the basis that if it was low, the budget would be manageable and, if it was high, it would have a lot more money to spend and therefore it would have to go with a Treasurer's advance authorisation bill. It has been happening since 2019. Every year we have multiple debates on it, and every year the government claims it is good management on its behalf and it has done it. I do not know how it has managed to drive up the iron ore price. I can still imagine former Premier Hon Mark McGowan with a small shovel weakening the dam wall in South America so that it would collapse and drive up the iron ore price a bit higher because they could not get as much out. He must have amazing influences in China, where a massive stimulus package required a lot of steel. You would not think that the government could claim credit for the enormous good luck that it has had, but it does. I guess that is politics. The government will always say it is good financial management. One of the things that the government did was to budget for a low iron ore price, and guess what? It is still doing it. Good luck to it; it is actually a clever move. Treasury officials must love it. That is their blessing at night. I remember former Treasurer Hon Ben Wyatt could not go to bed until he had checked the iron ore price, and I am sure that a few Treasury officials are doing exactly the same thing most nights. It is very clever.

As an example, let us look at the current financial year. The go-to iron ore price for budgeting in this state is US$71 a tonne, and it has been for a while now. If they look for it, they will go back to about US$70 a tonne. They do not like to shift that very much at all. Just remember, according to Treasury, each variation up or down of US$1 a tonne is worth $93 million or $95 million of additional revenue, but it varies a bit; it depends on which estimate is used. For the 2024–25 budget, which came down in May last year, the estimate was US$75 a tonne. In the midyear review, it was pushed up to US$95. Basically, it did not get over US$100 a tonne. The Pre-election Financial Projections Statement had it at US$98. Treasury's own documents currently have it at US$101.68. We are about to hit May, and if it stays at US$75 a tonne, which it has done for several months, the difference on average for the year will be $26.68. What does simply underestimating the iron ore price add to the government's coffers? It is just under 2.5 billion bucks. It has $2.5 billion of additional money to spend based entirely upon underestimating the iron ore price, and doing so deliberately for safety. It is a safe way to do it. That is what happens.

Hon Darren West: Should we overestimate it?

Hon Dr Steve Thomas: I have said three times that it is a clever move. Absolutely, it is a clever move. That is $2.5 billion that it has on its books. What is the government going to do with that $2.5 billion? If it were a believer in Keynesian economics, because it has budgeted fairly highly, it would put that back into debt reduction, but that is not what the government does. It wants to spend the extra $2.5 billion, particularly in the lead-up to an election year, to influence the election outcome. I kind of understand that, too. It wants to spend. Debt stays reasonably high. It wants to spend it. As long as there is a boom in place, it is going to need significant Treasurer's advance authorisation bills to be able to pump some of that money out of the money bin and into the wider economy. Scrooge McDuck has to fall down a little bit. There has to be a little bit less money in the bin. It has to try to get some of that money out; otherwise, the bin will explode in the end. It cannot just leave the money there and keep filling the bin up more. There is even a limit to how much money Scrooge can fit in the bin.

That is what is going on. We have a Treasurer's advance authorisation bill that is designed to spend the additional billions that the government has. At some point, there will be a natural correction to the iron ore price. I still consider US$100 a tonne to be boom times. Members might remember that in 2019 I asked then Treasurer Hon Ben Wyatt—a good Treasurer—what was going to happen if the price of iron ore stayed above US$90 a tonne. The answer that came back was that they had not even calculated it because it was highly unrealistic. That was in February 2019—six years ago. The natural cycle of things means that we are probably coming to the end of that next particular boom. At some point, we have to get back to a normal economic cycle. We have to get back to normal economic management.

Hon Stephen Dawson: Would you not agree there is a bit of turmoil in the world at the moment and global uncertainty?

Hon Dr Steve Thomas: Of course there is; absolutely. But the iron ore price is still US$100 a tonne today. It is still in boom. Yes, there is international turmoil. It will come and go. The American influence was a disaster. Funnily enough, it looks like the tariffs that apply to China might be fairly short term and temporary, so maybe that will change back. I think China, which is our biggest trading partner, just went, "Well, we can manage this and sit through it and that is what we are going to do", and suddenly the joy of the tariffs did not look like the original position. There is some of that, but I struggle to see that we are going to have an absolute collapse. We will have a correction back down to normal. We will go to a normal budget cycle.

The iron ore price might actually get down to the US$71 to US$75 a tonne the government predicted in its budget. I suspect the government is going to suffer some culture shock at that point, because it had only a couple of years of normal budget cycle before the boom started; it came in at the beginning of 2017. Interestingly, the 2017–18 and 2018–19 budgets delivered by the McGowan Labor government had debt going to the same levels as the government prior to it. It had deficit spending. It had a lot of those things going on. If good financial management shifted it, the government should not have needed a boom to change the outcomes, but the outcomes did not change until the boom came. The government's argument has always been that the previous government was going into $42 billion in debt, and that was in the forward estimates—absolutely right. But then, the next year, when the McGowan government dropped its budget, do members know what its four-year forward estimate of debt was? It was exactly the same. There was no magic financial management. It luckily got a boom. Congratulations, you got a boom. When it got that boom, it had to use Treasurer's advance bills to shovel money into the directions it wanted to shovel it. I get that and I understand that. A lot of that expenditure was quite reasonable, including the COVID stuff. It probably bought far too many RAT tests and I suspect it threw a lot of them out, but that is a different argument. We cannot always be perfect. Some of that money was good; some of it probably not so much.

I have said this before, and it is worth finishing on: the government, in spending the boom money at the levels that it has, is in direct competition with parts of the construction sector, in particular. It will get Metronet built, and it will largely build it for cash, given the level of the boom it has. There is $13 billion worth of Metronet to date, but the government has had three $6 billion surpluses—$4 billion and $3 billion. It is close to $30 billion in surpluses over that period. It has largely paid for Metronet with cash. Again, that is very clever, but there you go. At the same time, the mining industry has added 40,000 new jobs and it has expanded, and people are trying to build houses in Western Australia. It is worth reminding members that the boom this government has enjoyed has allowed it to do the things that it is doing today with this bill—to put billions of dollars of expenditure into construction, to compete with the mining sector and to compete with housing. The mining sector has bottomless pockets, and until the iron ore industry changes, it will continue to have bottomless pockets. Until the iron ore industry corrects, the government will continue to have bottomless pockets, but it is the poor old person trying to build a house in the construction market who will have to compete with two sets of bottomless pockets and who will suffer because they do not have bottomless pockets. A correction of that, at some point, would be good for the people of Western Australia.

On that note, the opposition is obviously supporting the Treasurer's Advance Authorisation Bill 2025 because that is what we do with these bills. The government should be very thankful, because I think it is very lucky.

Hon Neil Thomson (Mining and Pastoral Region) (3:13 pm): I would like to follow on from and reinforce some of the comments made by my colleagues in relation to the Treasurer's Advance Authorisation Bill 2025. I will also look at the comparison between the two Treasurer's Advance Authorisation Bills, 2024 and 2025, and make a few points. I will also look at some of the broader trends as well.

The first point I want to make, as has been alluded to by my colleague Hon Dr Steve Thomas, is about the need to improve the level of transparency around the Treasurer's advance. The amount that is being put forward is significant. We are not talking about a small amount of money, we are talking about a total amount of approximately $3 billion, if we include the 3% that is allocated and the additional $1.9 billion. This is not a small amount of money. We have had two years now where these numbers have been particularly high, and I am going to make some comparisons.

The process, for people who might be watching this or reading Hansard, is that the opposition gets a short PowerPoint presentation by Treasury officials, outlining some of the reasons for the advance. The Financial Administration Act has the requirement for 3%, there is an additional amount that is required and then there is just some general information about the reasons why we have got to this number and why we require this number to get us over the line to the end of the financial year. Because of the amount that is involved, there is probably a need to actually improve the reporting. In respect of the 3%, prior to the changes made to the Financial Management Act 2006 there was a smaller cap, as was properly outlined by Hon Dr Steve Thomas. The 3% was supposed to give a level of flexibility in proportion to overall revenue. Because we are now asking for a lot more, a bigger quantum in addition to that 3%—particularly, as I say, in the last two financial years—I think there needs to be some thought and consideration by the government in the spirit of transparency. That is not something that it has adopted very much over the last eight years, but in the spirit of transparency, it actually should provide a better account of that expenditure. I make the caveat that we will shortly get the opportunity to debate spending because we will, of course, have the budget in June and then estimates in August, or whenever that can be arranged, so some of my comments may pre-empt what might come up in that process.

Hon Dr Steve Thomas said some very important things. I thought the graph he presented was actually excellent, and it provided a bit of history in context. It is important to have that history in context. Hon Dr Steve Thomas said that you do it because you can; I wrote that down, because there is all this flex in the system. We might actually give it another name: quite a lot of slush in the system. We had a comment about this being a bit of a slush fund for the government, which came in at the last minute and said, "Well, we need a bit extra", because it has all this additional revenue that suddenly came through from some windfall gains. Certainly, if things were tight, the government would not be doing this. We have seen this now for two years in a row. I posit that this Treasurer's advance is the biggest slush fund that we have ever had. Last year's was actually bigger in dollar terms, but if we take out the impact of Cyclone Ellie, which was the reason used last time for the large incremental increase over 3%, last time the 3% was equivalent to $909 million. This time the 3% is $1.08 billion because we have had a bit of an increase in revenue over that time, but the increases were $2.3 billion last year and $1.9 billion this year. A lot of that $2.3 billion was related to Cyclone Ellie. Even then, as I said, we got the PowerPoint presentation referring to Cyclone Ellie, health and communities. There was Lumsden Point and the Port Hedland port upgrades. Those were the things that were discussed last time. As somebody who saw Cyclone Ellie firsthand, that was a significant amount of money. In fact, if we look at the additional unallocated amount, there is the additional amount that is put in there in case of emergencies or need.

Last time it was $1.33 billion; this time, it is $500 million. That money is a contingency for things like emergencies. I think there was a fair bit of insight and ability into predicting what that $1.3 billion would consist of. Members may be struggling to follow my point, but I am just making the point to Treasury officials that it is not correct to characterise this advance as equivalent to previous years. In my mind, it is a bigger advance. If we go back, we see $2.5 billion that had already been accounted for at the time of the pre-election financial statements. In a normal year, it would be compared with the midyear review. In 2024, that figure was $1.9 billion, but this time the figure in the pre-election financial statements is $2.5 billion. It is important to point out that after the midyear review and in the lead-up to the election, when those pre-election financial statements are allocated, $2.5 billion had been spent by the government. We know what that was all about. It was loading up. I contest that that is what it is all about. I would have liked it to be broken down in tabular form; that would have been great.

We saw a lot of pre-election commitments being made, which were actually election commitments made during the process of the budget spending. I assume some of those were potentially needed for some cash for this financial year. I would like that point clarified. We saw the government make a series of massive announcements. Why did it go on that announcement spree in the lead-up to the election? It did that so it could dress up the election commitments as being contained and look like it was maintaining some level of discipline when spending in the election. We saw all those announcements. Some of them would fall in the out years. If we had an opportunity before this debate, we would have liked a bit more information in the form of a table setting out the pre-election commitments. They were not election commitments; I am calling them pre-election spends that were made in the lead-up to the election. Those announcements ended up affecting the budget for this financial year. I would like to know that but we cannot tell. We will be able to tell when we get the budget because we will be able to go through it forensically.

Clearly, we have seen games played during this budget process—the smoke and mirrors that goes on by the government. It has come out with this massive spend. Hon Dr Steve Thomas did the calculations and came up with a figure of 6.6%, I think. In the previous year, 2024, he said it was —

Hon Dr Steve Thomas: It was 7.5, and 6.6 is the estimate for this financial year.

Hon Neil Thomson: I thank Hon Dr Steve Thomas for that. That is a very important point. That is quite a big flex. It is at the edge of that high level. There was a fair bit of Cyclone Alby in that 7.5%. It was a really bad year for expenditure. A bridge was wiped out. A range of things were going on. All that construction had to happen. We have not had the massive effects that occurred in that year but the $2.5 billion spend that I mentioned earlier came up to the pre-election financial statements, which then blew out the 3% statutory limit within the Financial Management Act.

There is a case that needs to be made given the propensity of this profligate Treasurer who has been the beneficiary of a boom, as so eloquently presented by previous speakers, in relation to the iron ore price and, I would add, by the massive capital investment that happened under former Premier Barnett in the period of the Liberal–National government—record capital investment. I will just keep repeating it because never have we repeated the level of private sector capital investment in this state under this government. There was record capital investment in the mining sector—almost $50 billion a year for four years. If we want to look at total private sector investment, we can see all the data in budget paper No 3. It has never been repeated. There has been some increase—some incline—after the massive expenditure by companies like Rio Tinto, and the expansion of FMG and some other companies, which were all driving productive capacity and led to a massive increase in iron ore production in Western Australia. It is a perfect overlay. I do not have a hard copy, so I cannot submit it today. There is a graph of the capital expenditure by the mining sector during the Barnett years—the Liberal–National government of that period. It was massive. Over four years, it was almost $50 billion per year. Then it dropped away. We have had a slight incline, but it has never been exceeded. That is a serious issue. We have this lag variable of revenue. Revenue suddenly took off because of the double whammy of a massive increase in productive output by the mining sector and tonnage, along with a massive increase in the price of iron ore.

I say to Hon Rita Saffioti in the other place that her windfall is purely a result of the incredible private sector investment that occurred during the period of the Liberal–National government during the Barnett years. Time and again, we on this side copped how badly we managed the state's finances because of the projected $42 billion debt level. I think that was the biggest con job. I said that in this place before. I will give the comparison of interest for some of those opposite who are slightly financially illiterate. They should go back and have a look at this issue. They should compare the forward estimates in the Liberal–National government's fourth year—I went through one budget paper at a time—with the actual revenue that was then delivered in four years' time. Here are the numbers over that period of time, starting with 2018–19—the comparison between when some boffin in Treasury was sitting there. I say that with a little self-acknowledgement because I spent a fair bit of my career in Treasury.

Hon Darren West interjected.

Hon Neil Thomson: I do not think anybody in Treasury could not be called a boffin.

Hon Darren West: Are you a boffin?

Hon Neil Thomson: Some members in this place may think I am, and some may not. I do not know. I will leave that for others to judge.

The thing is that the difference in 2018–19 was $3.39 billion; in 2019–20, it was $5.59 billion; in 2020–21, it was $12.8 billion; in 2021–22, it was $9.4 billion; in 2022–23, it was $13.5 billion; and in 2023–24, the last round, when we had the actuals, it was $15.75 billion. If we add up all those figures, it amounts to $59 billion, if we compare the fourth year and the out years with the actual outturn.

People then ask where the money has gone. We know where it went. It has gone into things like Metronet, which went through the roof. The original estimate, I believe, was that it was reported to cost $3 billion. That is what Labor quoted back then. It is now $13 billion. Look at the asset investment program. Asset investment in infrastructure in particular peaked. A lot of it is needed, but there has been a lot of gold plating as well. I look at the massive investment in steel and concrete for the Armadale line's raised platform. Frankly, I think that will be regarded as a planning travesty in years to come. From a transport engineering point of view, it is an ideal solution, but not as a planning outcome. The concrete and steel used for that project was drawn away from the concrete and steel that was needed to accommodate our growing population. It has caused a massive increase in the cost of construction in this state. We have a comparison between the productive capacity investment under our previous regime and the huge infrastructure spending as a result of the massive revenue increase that has come into the coffers through the bonuses of the massive iron ore price and productive capacity.

At the end of the day, I think there needs to be more transparency to this slush fund. I think that is an accurate description of it. I think that the figure Hon Dr Steve Thomas referred to of 6.6% might actually be higher. It depends on the denominator. Hon Dr Steve Thomas asked whether Treasury officials could give an answer to what the baseline was that Treasury used for the 3% under the legislation. If we do the calculations backwards, as I said, last year the statutory limit was $909 million and this year it is $1.08 billion. If we reverse that, 3% comes to $36 billion, but we know that revenue was more like $47 billion. I think the question Hon Dr Steve Thomas raised is correct and it needs to be answered. I do not think the baseline under the legislation with those numbers can include the partial revenues that come from the commonwealth. We might get some clarification on that. I would like to have that. It would have been nice for that to be included in this rather scant PowerPoint presentation that we got, as we are expected to sign off on another $2 billion of expenditure. I think that would have been useful. Based on the reverse calculation of the reported statutory limit of $1.08 billion, that would be a base of $36 billion. That means that we have seen a blowout of 8%, which is a little bit more than the number to which the member referred. We could have this discussion, but hopefully we can get clarification on this matter from the officers, if they can, through the minister representing the Treasurer. In that way, we could get more clarity on that. Yes, there is the pass through with the money from the federal government for the electricity subsidies, but, again, the two consistent items that came through in both years were Health and Communities. Health and Communities are struggling to meet their budgets. There is probably some learning to be done about the capacity for those agencies to deliver on their budgeted amounts.

If there is a message to be taken from it, it is that we support this bill. We do not intend to block supply today and cause a crisis in the financial system. That is not going to happen, of course, with the numbers in the house. Even if we did have the numbers, we would not be doing it today. I think the learning that might be able to be taken back from this, because we are talking about additional amounts at the higher end being provided year on year of $2 billion additional over the statutory requirement under the Financial Management Act, is that more information should be provided to the Western Australian Parliament. We are not running a fish and chip shop or a half-baked outfit. There is nothing wrong with fish and chip shops. They run very good businesses. I take that back. Some of the fish and shop owners would probably do a better job than some of our Treasury officials—

Several members interjected.

Hon Neil Thomson: I am talking about in the minister's office, I should say. We deserve more information when being asked to allow expenditure of a further $2 billion. If it sounds like I am chastising my former colleagues, it is because I am. We deserve more information than was presented. An additional $2 billion in funding deserves more analysis in this place. We need to be a bit more on our game, otherwise the government opens itself up to the criticism that it is just a slush fund and is something the government will do regularly until there is a revenue crisis. That is a fair criticism made in the other place by the shadow Treasurer and Leader of the Opposition. It is a fair criticism because it looks that way and smells that way. We need more transparency and more accountability from this government. I will leave my comments there. Thank you very much.

Hon Nick Goiran (South Metropolitan Region) (3:37 pm): I rise as we consider the Treasurer's Advance Authorisation Bill 2025. I am grateful for the remarks made by three of my colleagues already this afternoon. Members will be aware that this bill was introduced into the other place on 9 April. Members will also be aware that this bill was introduced into this place on the same day. In other words, this bill was introduced and passed in a single day in the other place and now it is left to us to be asking the questions that need to be asked about this request by the Treasurer for more money from the taxpayers of Western Australia. Members will be aware that this bill seeks an authorisation in expenditure for the current financial year of an additional $1.9 billion. This is, of course, in addition to the more than $1 billion that was already currently approved by way of the ordinary statutory rule of law. In total, we are looking at a figure in excess of $3 billion.

As members will be aware it is hardly unprecedented for a Treasurer to come to the Parliament and seek an advance authorisation.

It is hardly without precedent, but, nevertheless, it is always incumbent on the government, if it is coming to the Parliament for authorisation, to provide a justification for that authorisation.

I note that in the other place, during its speedy scrutiny of the bill, the shadow Treasurer made an important observation, noting that the amount that is being sought in this bill exceeds what was sought during the COVID-19 pandemic. As members would be aware, that was a time when extraordinary measures were taken. There was always an ongoing debate about whether those measures were proportionate, justified et cetera. Nevertheless, it is the case that they were extraordinary times and, as a result of that, an authorisation was granted. If it is the case now, on 29 April 2025, we are hearing from the Cook Labor government that it needs an authorisation in excess of that, it is incumbent on it to justify precisely why that ought to be the case. Very interestingly, when one pauses for a moment to consider the second reading speech made by the Treasurer in the other place, she said that most of the significant components of this expenditure—most of it—would be spent on things such as $469.7 million being a funding increase for Synergy, which we are told is primarily to deliver the Commonwealth government's electricity rebates to households and eligible small businesses. We are also told by the Treasurer in that speech that some $416.2 million is needed for WA Health apparently to support higher activity funding to address price-related pressures and service expansion in hospitals. In addition to that we are told that some $321.9 million is needed for the Department of Communities to primarily meet increased demand for key services, particularly in the child protection system, as well as to deliver additional affordable and social housing dwellings.

As the shadow Minister for Child Protection, naturally a part of me is inclined to welcome any increased funding towards child protection, but it does not abrogate the government of its responsibility to justify why this amount is being sought at this particular time. It is no justification to simply say, "Well, we're going to provide more for child protection." Yes, a noble gesture that might be, but why was that not included in the original budget and why is it now being sought at this particular time? What exactly is it intended to be spent on in respect to the child protection system?

My primary concern in respect to the bill presently before the house is that whatever this expenditure is being spent on—whether you want to call it an additional $1.9 billion or an additional $3 billion, if you want to include the statutory formula—one thing is clear: it is not being spent on properly resourcing the monitoring and supervision of registered sex offenders, and it clearly is not being spent on monitoring and supervision of domestic violence perpetrators on bail in regional Western Australia.

I want to spend few moments this afternoon to unpack the resourcing problems that are evidently the case in this issue of GPS electronic tracking. I begin by looking at a case that was revealed only a fortnight ago that domestic violence perpetrators cannot be properly monitored outside of the Perth metropolitan area. This came to light as a result of a bail hearing for a 25-year-old man accused of breaking into his ex-partner's home and assaulting her. The magistrate in that particular case decided that there were exceptional circumstances and granted bail with no electronic monitoring. To better understand this particular case, it is useful for me to take a few moments to quote from an article by the ABC South West in Western Australia on 15 April 2025 entitled, "Electronic monitoring of offenders outside Perth not possible, WA authorities admit". It begin as follows:

West Australian authorities have conceded they do not have the capacity to electronically monitor people charged with crimes in regional communities.

The alarming admission emerged during an appearance on Monday in Bunbury Magistrates Court,—

I pause there to remind members that this is a quote from article on 15 April 2025—

where 25-year-old Raymond Donald Nebro stood accused of breaking into the home of his ex-partner and assaulting her while their one-year-old son was in the house.

At this point there is a quote from an Adult Community Corrections official that says:

"We can't manage electronic monitoring outside of Perth," an Adult Community Corrections official told the court.

"It's just not feasible."

Police prosecutor Jason Gentili told the court he had also received an email from the police commissioner confirming the Department of Justice directive.

To be clear here, we have a case before the courts, in which the Adult Community Corrections official, in informing the courts, is at the risk and the pain of, if they inform the court wrongly, being in contempt of that court—"We can't manage electronic monitoring outside of Perth. It's just not feasible." We also have the police prosecutor, Mr Gentili, telling the court that he has also received an email from the Commissioner of Police confirming exactly that. We now have two public servants paid by the taxpayers of Western Australia who have an obligation not to mislead the court, not to be in contempt of the court, who are informing the court that there is a major problem when it comes to electronic monitoring outside of Perth—two individuals. The article goes on to say:

Mr Nebro has been charged with aggravated home burglary, breaching a family violence restraining order and common assault over the April 13 incident.

Mr Nebro's lawyer said her client denied the allegations.

Sergeant Gentili told the court the alleged victim had previously taken out a family violence restraining order against Mr Nebro.

The issues regarding electronic monitoring surfaced when Mr Nebro applied for bail.

Magistrate Tanya Watt eventually approved the bail application on a $2,000 surety and said she was "satisfied" there were "exceptional circumstances".

…

Last year it became a legal requirement that all alleged perpetrators of family violence in WA be subject to electronic bracelet monitoring.

The government—

Of course, talking about the Cook Labor government—

introduced new laws in June 2024 following a spate of shocking, high-profile murders in the state.

The new laws take away the courts' discretion on who should wear a tracking device under the following circumstances:

The article then goes on to usefully summarise three of those circumstances as follows:

When a person is declared a serial family violence offender, which means they have committed an act of domestic violence three times in 10 years, or twice if it is an indictable family violence offence.

When a person is subject to a family violence restraining order and either commits or is accused of a further family violence offence.

Family violence offenders eligible for early release from prison or those subject to a post-sentence supervision order.

The article then goes on to make this statement:

It is not clear how those charged with family and domestic violence outside of Perth will be monitored.

The journalist then goes on to essentially interview Dr Alison Evans from the Centre for Women's Safety and Wellbeing:

Centre for Women's Safety and Wellbeing chief executive Alison Evans said it was disappointing to hear the provision of electronic tracking devices had not been maintained in regional areas.

The journalist quotes Dr Evans:

"It's disappointing to hear the resources aren't there," she said.

"Having said that, it's better to not use that technology if the resources aren't there … as it may give the victim survivor a sense of security that's not actually there."

It ends the quote there. The article goes on to say:

Dr Evans is seeking more information from the Department of Justice and is expected to be briefed on the lack of resourcing for GPS tracking. She said bail applications for high-risk accused offenders in regional areas should be denied if electronic monitoring was not available."I'm very keen to have better information to understand why the GPS monitoring isn't available in certain regions," Dr Evans said.

The article finishes with a quote from Dr Evans:

If there's sufficient evidence the offender poses a risk to victim survivors, they absolutely shouldn't be released on bail.

That was an article on 15 April, two weeks ago, by ABC South West WA online news entitled "Electronic monitoring of offenders outside Perth not possible, WA authorities admit". I want to reiterate that it is not one official who said this—it is two. Two officials have told a court in Western Australia that there is a major problem with regard to electronic monitoring of offenders outside of WA, outside of Perth. They say it is not possible. They say it is not feasible. They cannot manage it outside of Perth. That is what they have said to the courts. Now the question for members is: How much weight will they place on that? How much weight will members place on the word of two public servants, one being a police prosecutor and the other an official from Adult Community Corrections? How much weight will members place on what those two individuals have told the court with respect to the feasibility and the efficacy of electronic monitoring of offenders outside of Perth? How much weight will members put on that? Members, compare and contrast that to how much weight members might place on the word of the Premier of Western Australia and/or the word of the Minister for Corrective Services. It is not available as an option for members to say that they will place equal weight in respect to the word of all four of those people. They are not aligned. The Premier of Western Australia, Mr Cook, and his corrective services minister seemed to be under the illusion that there is not really a problem here.

Earlier today in the other place, the Minister for Corrective Services was asked whether there are any suburbs in the Perth metropolitan area where the Department of Justice cannot provide electronic monitoring. If there were, what is the reason electronic monitoring cannot be operated in these suburbs? I would encourage members, especially members opposite, to have a look at what the Minister for Corrective Services said. It is a pretty simple question: are there any suburbs in the Perth metropolitan area where the Department of Justice cannot provide electronic monitoring? Have a look at what the minister said. I will paraphrase what he said on the proviso that members take the time to look at what he literally said when the uncorrected proof is available to them. Paraphrasing what he said, in essence, he said there is no problem. He said that there are no suburbs in the Perth metropolitan area where the Department of Justice cannot provide electronic monitoring. That is within the metropolitan area. These particular individuals who were quoted by the ABC South West WA were dealing with areas outside of the metropolitan area, which takes me to an article that was only published earlier this morning. This article is by WA state political reporter Keane Bourke, and it is entitled "WA government struggles with pledge to electronically track repeat domestic violence offenders". The following is what Mr Bourke said in his analysis today. I would encourage members who have a genuine interest in this matter, members who spoke in favour of the reforms last year, to have a look at this article in which Mr Bourke says:

As the WA government set out to mandate GPS tracking for serious, repeat family and domestic violence offenders last year, its language was unequivocal. "We will make sure that women feel safe in their homes," then-family and domestic violence minister Sabine Winton declared, standing on the front steps of Parliament House.

The idea was that anyone accused or convicted of another offence after being handed a restraining order, or being declared a serial family violence offender, would be tracked 24/7 because courts would be compelled to impose electronic monitoring whenever granting bail. Four months on and that ideal has come crashing down under the weight of reality, first revealed publicly by an Adult Community Corrections official.

"We can't manage electronic monitoring outside of Perth," they told a Bunbury court earlier this month.

While Corrective Services Minister Paul Papalia indicated on Tuesday that official might have misspoken and that monitoring is available in at least some regional areas, it's done nothing to quell confusion over the issue.

Now I pause there. Mr Bourke, in his analysis this morning, confirmed that Mr Papalia, the police minister, has suggested that that Adult Community Corrections officer might have misspoken. Has Mr Papalia spoken to that Adult Community Corrections official, if not directly then through the director general? Has somebody spoken to that official to make sure that he or she corrects the record with the court? If what Mr Papalia is suggesting is true, that this individual has misspoken, then the court ought to be informed of that. To my knowledge, no such information has been provided to the courts. I would invite the government to confirm to the house whether such information has been provided to the courts. In the absence of that confirmation, I will continue to assume that no such correction has been provided to the courts, which means that we have corrective services minister Papalia—I would suggest politically and conveniently—suggesting that this official, who he seems to be happy to throw under the bus, has misspoken, but doing nothing to correct the record with regard to the courts. In any event, at best, it seems that Minister Papalia is suggesting that electronic monitoring is available in some regional areas. Which parts of Western Australia are subject to this regime by Minister Papalia? Which parts? Because when the then Minister for Prevention of Family and Domestic Violence, Minister Winton, declared on the front steps of Parliament last year that the government would make sure that women feel safe in their homes, she did not say at that time, "Well, we only mean in respect to metropolitan Perth and some areas in regional WA."

That was not what was suggested. The clear indication is that it would apply to all of Western Australia. There was no suggestion at the time that there were first-class and second-class citizens in Western Australia and that some people would be able to feel safer because they lived in metropolitan Perth, but beware of living in the regions. No-one suggested that for a moment. What is also very interesting is not only do we have the word of two officials in court, which is yet to have been corrected in the event that they have misspoken, but we also now know that the police union has raised concerns about this. Mr Bourke says in his article published earlier this morning:

Now, the police union has also raised concerns about the effectiveness of police responses to breaches across the state, although it was quickly dismissed by the premier.

Curtin University social work professor Donna Chung worries about what that means for victim-survivors where they believe their perpetrator is being monitored.

"Being on bail during that period and not being monitored at your most dangerous point is a real risk for further violence and even lethality for women," Professor Chung told the ABC.

Despite that, the government has given few clear answers as to how it plans to address fundamental issues with one of its flagship policies — just extra staff and language which has shifted dramatically over the last two weeks.

I repeat: “just extra staff and language which has shifted dramatically over the last two weeks”. What is going on there? Why is the Premier now changing his language in respect of this electronic monitoring matter? Mr Bourke says in the article:

After the first case of an accused being released without GPS monitoring, despite the government's law, Premier Roger Cook had a simple solution.

"If the courts cannot make an arrangement whereby an accused serial domestic violence offender [can] be properly monitored, they need to be put behind bars," he said.

But magistrates aren't taking their cues from what the premier declares at a media conference.

They're bound by the law and have at least twice since then released offenders who the government wanted monitored without a requirement they be tracked.

I find it extraordinary that when faced with a barrage of questions from Mr Bourke in respect of this matter, the Premier of WA thinks that it is okay and it is just going to disappear and go away when he tries to tell the courts that this is how they should do it. Since when has that been the case? His language changes as he continues to face this barrage of questions. It continues:

One of those cases involved a man who was alleged to have committed offences against an ex-partner.

He had been out on bail in regional WA, being electronically monitored, when the Justice Department applied to the court to cancel his bail.

This analysis piece says as follows:

"Electronic monitoring cannot be adequately facilitated to maintain continued tracking," the department told the court.

Under the government's "tough new laws", which were meant to take discretion away from the court — and the premier's interpretation of that legislation — it should have meant the accused was remanded back in custody unless there were "exceptional reasons".

Magistrate Erin O'Donnell disagreed.

"I don't consider that there are exceptional reasons, but at the same time, I don't think it is a situation in which it is appropriate to revoke bail altogether," she said.

"I don't think that it is a case where the court ought to be constrained by resourcing issues or whether it's the fact that the government did not consider things adequately when passing the legislation they did."

And so the accused was released on bail as long as justice could fit monitoring equipment by the end of the day — and even if they couldn't, he was to be released on bail anyway.

A similar case days earlier saw an accused, required under the law to be tracked, released on bail without it because of "exceptional circumstances".

Professor Chung said the cases highlighted the risk of victim-survivors being given a "false reassurance that everybody who was eligible … would be given that electronic monitoring".

Then Mr Bourke says in this article:

The premier then changed his language but continued to throw the issue back on the courts.

This is a Premier who never takes responsibility when it comes to these matters; he just washes his hands and blames somebody else. It reminds me of his performance as a health minister. He took no responsibility and ran away, as did his replacement. We wish the very best of luck to the third minister in that particular portfolio. We can only hope that that individual does better than the two predecessors.

When it comes to this issue of electronic monitoring and the Premier’s big rhetoric about taking on domestic violence, thugs and the like and the issues emerging, no responsibility is taken. There is ducking, diving, deflecting and changing of language. It is no wonder that Mr Bourke is not satisfied with this and continues to hound the Premier about this matter. I really recommend to members this analysis piece from this morning. It continues:

The community could rest easy, he said—

Of course, he is referring to the Premier there—

because judicial officers would make decisions about whether someone could safely be released on bail well before even the idea of GPS monitoring crossed their minds.

Electronic monitoring was an "extra element", he said, where a judicial officer had already decided it was safe for a person to be out on bail.

Over 10 months the requirement for monitoring had gone from a "key" element to simply an "extra".

The premier's other main point was that such complications in regional areas had been expected.

If they were, the government never let it on publicly.

As the laws were being debated in parliament the only discussion was around someone living in "an area beyond GPS reception, in a remote or regional area where it does not work".

That is a far smaller part of the state than the Justice Department flagged in court when it raised issues around monitoring "outside of Perth".

The department refused to explain how widespread the issues were, instead only saying it would not support the release of an FDV offender who posed an unacceptable risk to the community.

But as the cases above show, the department not supporting bail doesn't mean a person will be remanded in custody.

…

The premier's language then changed for a third time with a request for people to understand how difficult the task was for the government.

"The laws were passed in December last year and we are continuing to embed those laws now in the practices of government," he said.

"So you would say that in a state as big and as wide as ours that they're actually dealing with some challenging issues and doing very well in rolling that system out."

But Professor Chung disagrees. She wants the government to come clean on the problems and what it's going to do, beyond hiring 12 more staff to help with monitoring.

"Some very clear guidance to the public [is needed] around under what circumstances people will be subjected to the monitoring, and also, are there areas where the monitoring isn't currently effective," she said.

At the heart of it all, she said, was a simple question of equity.

"People by virtue of their geography shouldn't be less safe …

Is that aspiration shared by the Cook Labor government? Does it think that it is okay for some people to be less safe by virtue of their geography? Surely it does not. This article concludes by saying:

The government's initial promise of safety for all women had no caveats, no exceptions, and no carve-outs based on where they lived.

But until the government can deliver on that promise, or come clean on why they can't, questions will continue to be asked.

It is not often that I take the opportunity to acknowledge the good work of a journalist in Western Australia, but this has been an excellent piece of work by Mr Bourke. I encourage members to look at this summary. It properly identifies the issue and it properly holds the government to account for not only what it said, but the current state of affairs. Despite the fact that this has been an ongoing point of interest for more than two weeks, I suspect that not a single person in this chamber has any further clarity around the scope of electronic monitoring. For these offenders in WA, does it apply throughout the whole of the state or to only part of the state? Keep in mind we have two officials who have gone to the court and have said it is not feasible and we cannot manage electronic monitoring outside Perth. Either they have misled the court or they have not. There should be none of this tricky stuff by Mr Papalia that maybe they have misspoken. There is no misspeaking before the court. If someone does that, they go back to the court, apologise for it and make sure that the record is correct.

So which is it? Does GPS tracking for serious offenders apply to all of Western Australia or only parts of Western Australia? If it applies only to parts of Western Australia, the people of Western Australia are entitled to know which parts. Are people safer north of the Swan River or south of the Swan River? Are they safer in the Mining and Pastoral Region, as it was then? There are still members in this place who represent that region. The government may have abolished regional representation in this place, but there are still members who, for a few more weeks, represent the Mining and Pastoral Region. I ask those members—there are six of them—whether the GPS electronic monitoring that the Cook Labor government boasted about last year applies equally in their region and in mine, the South Metropolitan Region. Is it equal or is it different? What about the representatives of the South West Region or the Agricultural Region? The same question applies. Let us not pretend that it is not more challenging for anyone in government to deal with the expanse that is an area like the Mining and Pastoral Region. A fair-minded Western Australian will understand the difference between that and metropolitan Perth, but, as Mr Bourke says in his article today, it is time for the government to come clean about that. If it is the case that there is a portion of Western Australia where the government cannot possibly undertake this electronic monitoring, it ought to be known, and it should be unequivocal. It is not conceivable that nobody in government knows the answer to that question. After all, two officials have said to the court that it is not feasible and cannot be done—they cannot manage it outside of Perth.

Let us just park for a moment the issue of the two officials before the courts, the police union now adding its voice, and at least one journalist, or maybe more, in Western Australia being interested in the issue of GPS tracking in regional Western Australia and return to metropolitan Perth. Remember, earlier today, Mr Papalia was asked in the other place whether there are any suburbs in the Perth metropolitan area where the Department of Justice cannot provide electronic monitoring. I hope that members will take the opportunity to read his response, which, in essence, seems to suggest that there is no area in metropolitan Perth where the department cannot provide electronic monitoring. My question then is: What happened at Whitfords train station in December last year? After all this time, and with all the ducking and diving by the Premier and the changing of language that has been exposed by Mr Bourke, the Premier has still not provided to the people of Western Australia an account of what went horribly wrong on 19 December last year. It cannot be an excuse to say, as these officials have said to the court, "We can't monitor outside of the Perth metropolitan area." That cannot be the excuse here, because this attack is alleged to have occurred at or near Whitfords train station. This particular individual was a registered sex offender. He had been released on a post-sentence supervision order. In other words, in December last year, this Cook Labor government was obliged—it had a duty—to supervise this person. This person is on a post-sentence supervision order. The name of the order should be self-explanatory. It requires the government to supervise this person after their sentence, yet this particular individual, who was supposedly being supervised by the Cook Labor government, is now before the courts, having brutally attacked a woman in her 40s. This individual, whose name is Mr Unchango, was released from prison on 14 November last year, if my notes are correct, after having served a sentence for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old. Why is it that the Premier of Western Australia, with all his ducking and diving on this fiasco around GPS tracking in regional Western Australia, will not provide an account to the people of Western Australia of what happened at Whitfords? It cannot be the case that the response from this unaccountable Premier is that he cannot comment because the matter is before the courts. I am not aware of anyone who has asked the Premier for his opinion about whether he thinks that a criminal offence has taken place. That is not the issue. That is for the courts to sort out. The courts, in time, are going to sort out whether Mr Unchango has committed a criminal offence against this woman in her 40s at Whitfords train station. That is a matter for the courts to decide. The issue that should be of interest to members in this place is what level of monitoring and supervision was available at that time for this individual, who had been released on a post-sentence supervision order having sexually assaulted a 14-year-old? Was it the case that the Cook Labor government was not supervising this individual and, because of its dereliction of duty, this individual has gone on and allegedly attacked this lady at Whitfords train station? Is that what has happened here? There has not been a word on this issue from Mr Cook for five months now.

I want to compare and contrast that to a tragedy that occurred at around that time. Members will recall that a plane accident took place at Rottnest. My recollection is that on the same day as, or at least within 24 hours of, that plane accident, Mr Cook, as the Premier of Western Australia at the time, was happy to have a press conference. I use the word "happy" advisedly, because obviously we are talking about a tragedy, so perhaps a better word to use would be "prepared". He was prepared to quickly have a press conference. Why? It was to talk to the people of Western Australia about the tragedy that occurred. I do not quibble with that at all. I think that was an appropriate course of action. If a tragedy has occurred, the Premier of Western Australia should give an account to the people of Western Australia. You see, the people of Western Australia have an interest in—you might even say that they have a love for—Rottnest Island. Therefore, if a plane accident occurs on or around Rottnest Island, it is appropriate that the Premier of Western Australia stands up and answers some questions, not because anyone is blaming the Premier for a plane accident, but to try to give some confidence back to the people of Western Australia that it is perhaps a one-off event and is not going to be a series of events. That is why the Premier of Western Australia would stand at a press conference to give an account about that tragedy.

Why is it okay for the Premier of Western Australia to give an account in respect of the plane tragedy at Rottnest Island, but not to say a word in respect of the 40-year-old woman who was attacked at Whitfords train station. It is not okay, not only for the sake of and out of respect for this woman who was attacked, but surely for the sake of everybody else. If people might be concerned about whether it is safe to take a plane to and from Rottnest Island, would it not be of interest to people to know whether they are going to be safe going to Whitfords train station? More to the point, Acting President, unlike the Rottnest plane tragedy, the government had a responsibility and a duty to monitor Mr Unchango. This individual had already served a sentence for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old and was released on a post-sentence supervision order. The question remains: Was the government supervising this individual? Was he simply at large and free to do as he pleased at Whitfords train station?

If it is the case that Mr Cook, as I suspect, will continue to stay silent, to not be accountable in respect of this matter and to act in a hypocritical fashion in which he is prepared to stand at a press conference for a Rottnest plane tragedy but is unwilling to answer a single question about an attack of a woman in her 40s at Whitfords train station, are we going to continue to have this situation, presumably because, politically conveniently, Mr Cook wants to rely on the fact that the matter is presently before the courts? Will the government give a commitment to provide answers on these matters once the matter has concluded before the courts? I will not hold my breath, Acting President—not in respect of this government, because this government has got form in not being accountable.

This is not okay. When the Treasurer comes along and wants another $1 billion, $2 billion or $3 billion in advance payments from the taxpayers of Western Australia, the government could at least be accountable and justify that expenditure by telling the people of Western Australia the scope of GPS electronic monitoring and whether they can have confidence that such registered offenders will be supervised and monitored, because at the present time I do not believe that they can.

Hon Samantha Rowe (East Metropolitan Region—Parliamentary Secretary) (4:22 pm) in reply: I start by thanking members opposite—Hon Tjorn Sibma, Hon Steve Thomas, Hon Neil Thomson and Hon Nick Goiran—for their contributions to the debate on the Treasurer's Advance Authorisation Bill 2025. As members will know, Section 29 of the Financial Management Act 2006 provides an automatic limit on the Treasurer's advance, calculated as 3% of the amount appropriated in the previous financial year. For 2024–25, this equates to a Treasurer's advance limit of $1,081 million. This Treasurer's Advance Authorisation Bill seeks to increase this limit by $1,926 million to $3,007 million. The Treasurer's advance only provides the authority to meet higher than expected funding requirements. It does not commit the state to any other additional spending. Any unspent capacity under the Treasurer's advance lapses on 30 June 2025. The actual outrun is transparently disclosed in the Annual Report on State Finances released in late September.

In general terms, higher than forecast spending charged to the Treasurer's advance is mainly driven by unavoidable increases that emerge after the budget bills are finalised. I noted key examples of such increases in my second reading speech, including a $469.7 million funding increase for Synergy, primarily to deliver the Commonwealth government's electricity rebates to households and eligible small businesses. There is additional funding of $416.2 million for WA Health, mainly to support higher activity funding to address price-related pressures and service expansion in hospitals. There is $321.9 million for the Department of Communities, largely for increased demand for key services, particularly in relation to child protection, as well as to deliver additional affordable and social housing dwellings.

Managing the budget is a year-round process and further pressures will require attention by 30 June, putting further demand on the Treasurer's advance this year. In that regard, the $1,926 million increase in the Treasurer's advance limit reflected in this bill includes $1,426 million, which, together with the automatic allowance of $1,081 million, covers the estimated funding requirements detailed in the 2024–25 Pre-election Financial Projections Statement, and $500 million as an allowance for funding that may emerge after the Pre-election Financial Projections Statement and up to 30 June 2025. The $500 million allowance provides parliamentary approval for funding to be available for unavoidable and unforeseen expenditure during the remainder of this year.

As members will be aware, the Cook government has made significant cost-of-living assistance available to Western Australians and the buffer will support the recently announced second round of the WA student assistance payment, which provides $250 for every secondary student and $150 for primary and kindergarten students. In addition to the WA student assistance payment, any new expenditure will generally be required to meet frontline service delivery, movements in the timing of Commonwealth contributions to various joint programs, and potential natural disasters such as fires, floods, cyclones and severe storms, which are increasingly expensive events that can emerge at any time. Importantly, members should note that all the spending identified as a charge to the Treasurer's advance in the Pre-election Financial Projections Statement is already included in the state's forward estimate of net debt and the operating surplus.

I will respond to some of the comments made by members in contributions already given. I start with Hon Tjorn Sibma, who did not ask specific questions as such, but made some observations that I will comment on—the first being that this is the 19th Treasurer's Advance Authorisation Bill since the late 1990s. This demonstrates that this is a common legislative mechanism to enable appropriation for decisions disclosed and announced as part of the midyear review and, this year, the Pre-election Financial Projections Statement.

I would like to add that in an election year these bills are more typical, given that the budget is delivered later than the usual release date, May, in non-election years. This authorisation is necessary to fund the WA student assistance payment this financial year. As many members would know, applications opened yesterday. The return of Parliament and the prompt consideration of the Treasurer's Advance Authorisation Bill by members means that we can provide this important cost-of-living assistance in term 2, sooner than if we had to wait until the budget and the 2025–26 financial year to deliver this important commitment we made to the people of Western Australia at the 2025 election.

Leave granted for the member's speech to be continued at a later stage of the sitting.

Debate adjourned, on motion by Hon Peter Foster.