RELIEF FUNDS

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 86, 8 October 1935, Page 17

RELIEF FUNDS

POSITION IN VICTORIA

NO PARLIAMENTARY CONTROL

Startling revelations that there was a deficit of £296.000 in the unemployment relief fund :on June 30; that future revenue is being mortgaged; and that neither Parliament nor the Audit Office has any control over the funds, were made by the AuditorGeneral (Mr. J. A. Norris) in his annual report to the Victorian Parliament recently.

In a critical analysis, the AuditorGeneral showed that £3,500,581 was spent on relief last financial year as follows, says the "Age":—Unemployed relief fund (tax), £1,704.974; advanced from "public account," £296,372; from loan moneys, £1,499,230. Mr. Norris stated that he had communicated with the Treasurer on August 8 last asking for a direction from Parliament as to £296,371 of the relief expenditure being met by an advance from the "public account" which,had not been repaid on June 30, and was carried forward pending next year's collections.

"I was aware," Mr. Norris said, "that existing laws had transferred from Parliament to the executive of the Employment Council the allocation and appropriation of the unemployment relief moneys. I was, however, of opinion that Parliament could determine the total amount which may be expended in any year on relief works and services. That the estimate of the revenue to be collected in the year, together with loan moneys authorised, should be the maximum of the expenditure, and that 'the estimate' mentioned in the enactment was the sum which had been submitted to Parliament and included as portion of the Treasurer's proposals for the year's expenditure." Mr. Norris quoted the opinion of the Crown Solicitor, which was to the effect that there was no statutory authority for considering that the estimates submitted by the Treasurer to Parliament as portion of the year's supply should be considered as the estimate for the purposes of the subsection referred to. REVISED ESTIMATES. The more reasonable view was that throughout the financial year the Treasurer should, in the light of the latest information as to receipts from unemployment taxes and duties from time to time, prepare a revised estimate so that on the one hand the public account would not be overdrawn at the end of the financial year, and on the other hand the maximum amount of revenue would be available for unemployed relief. The Crown Solicitor was also of opinion that the law permitted the Treasurer's advance being used for unemployed relief expenditure in excess of the £500,000 that might be charged to the "public account." The limit of the Treasurer's advance, Mr. Norris explained, Was, also £500,000, and was an advance from the public account, which was established as a precautionary measure and to enable the Treasurer to use surplus money to prevent delay in constructing capital works pending a loan being raised at a favourable opportunity.

"It is clear, therefore," the AuditorGeneral declared, "that Parliament has practically no control over the allocation _of moneys available for unemployed relief, nor does it regulate the maximum expenditure. The expenditure is not subject to the restrictions and supervisions prescribed by the Audit Act." .■■■■■,.

The estimated expenditure of the unemployed relief fund (taxes), Mr. Norris said, was £1,765,000. The actual expenditure was £2,001,351, of which £296,371 was carried forward pending revenue collections in the next or ensuing years. The arrears of relief tax was £438,133. , . "Constitutional practice," the AuditorGeneral said, "assumes it is the revenue collected in the year that is available for the expenditure of the year. Departures from this principle by establishing special funds have been responsible in the past for 'internal deficits' of which the most serious were those in the land settlement funds."