Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

As the minister would be aware, if a reallocation is, in his terms, ‘made’ then that is a question of a program being underspent. That is obviously not something knowable at this stage. What I am asking him to confirm is that the government, should it determine to proceed with the second tranche of advertising, will make a special appropriation that is not dealt with in these budget papers. I accept by that stage there may be underspends in line items for the department, so it may be that the allocation to that second tranche does not necessarily trigger a full additional allocation to the department—because there may be some underspends that can be redirected. But my question to the minister is quite simple. We have the appropriations bills before the parliament. They deal in line item detail with the expenditure of the department. I am just asking him to confirm that the costs or potential costs of the second tranche of advertising do not appear in these budget papers.

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