The article continues:
with point 2.24 of the Manual stipulating that: “Under the Public Finance Act 1989, 'Responsible Ministers'—
That's in quotes, and I would put that in quotes with regard to this government.
—are responsible to Parliament for the financial performance of the departments within their portfolios and for protecting the Crown’s interest in those departments”.
I don't know that they're protecting the Crown's interests very well when they're saddling generations with now up to $1.4 trillion of national debt going forward because apparently budgets don't balance themselves. I haven't heard that in a while, but apparently they don't balance themselves. In 2015, it was just a small deficit, just a little stimulus deficit for an economy that was booming. They said, “Don't worry; in 2019 it will be balanced.” Guess what? I believe it was a $20-billion deficit in 2019; it wasn't balanced. Budgets don't balance themselves, and the government has given up any pretense of even.... Then it became a fiscal anchor. Well, this fiscal anchor is dropping us down quite deep. They do use anchors in securing illegal elver nets. I'll come back to that in a minute.