That's a very good question, and it really links quite closely to John Williams's proposal in a previous parliamentary committee, to see whether or not one could allow committees to look at reallocations within the vote and not to have that deemed a confidence question. In other words, it was to decide that a certain amount of money, maybe 3% of the operating budget, could be looked at, and if a parliamentary committee wished, it could cut one expenditure and reallocate funding to another area across the reallocation, given the priorities it would see.
If that were to work, that would have to be deemed not a confidence motion on the part of the government, otherwise it gets played in a much different way. I guess that's really a question for government: it's whether and how they're going to view those items in the budget as confidence or not.
The tradition, history, and momentum have been to view the entire budget as a matter of confidence. That has certainly been the trend. We have certainly seen that. We of course have had different situations, as we recently had with minority situations. I think it's quite difficult in a practical way to get certain aspects of the total budget, particular aspects, deemed not to be matters of confidence.
Here I come back to my earlier line that as we move forward, I think we need to look not only at what's desirable but also what's feasible.
I see this as more or less as having problems with feasibility.