Senator JOYCE—I draw your attention to page 64 of the budget departmental balance sheet. My first inquiry is: in the heritage and cultural assets, your actual of $6,569,000 becomes $6,459,000 in the revised budget, then reverts back to $6,569,000 as a continuum. What is the reason for that $100,000 difference?
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Mr Hobson—That would be acquisition or proposed acquisitions, and then of course there will be disposals or revaluation and changes in valuations.
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Senator JOYCE—Why is there a $100,000 difference—a $100,000 depreciation of your heritage and cultural assets?
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Mr Hobson—Heritage and cultural assets also include our library collection, manuscripts and journals et cetera, and at times their values are adjusted accordingly.
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Senator JOYCE—Why is it adjusted down by $100,000 and then straight back up to its original number?
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Mr Hobson—That is in the subsequent year?
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Senator JOYCE—Yes.
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Mr Hobson—That could be estimates based on possible acquisitions or additions to that.
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Senator JOYCE—It just seems peculiar that you have such a perfect number and you have gone down by $100,000 and then back up to its original number as it was right at the start. Are you proposing in your revised budget to sell exactly $100,000 worth of heritage and cultural assets and then buy back again that exact number?
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Mr Hobson—No.
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Mr Larkin—It is an area in which prices can fluctuate because it is quite difficult at times to place a lasting cost on some of these things. They do change. They are not actually always costed according to market values. There is also a lot of cultural value to it, but I suggest we take that on notice and provide an answer back.
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Senator JOYCE—I think that would be good. It just seems peculiar. If you adjust them down, you would keep them down. Why would you adjust them back up again?
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CHAIR—We can come back after afternoon tea.
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Senator JOYCE—I have other questions that I want to pursue afterwards.
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Senator Carr—Are there many questions?
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Senator JOYCE—I have a few. Do you want to finish?
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Senator Carr—It depends how long it is going to take.
Senator JOYCE—I refer you to page 65 and the $106,000, which represents proceeds from sales of property, plant and equipment. Does that relate also to the $2,000 gain in the income and expense schedule? In your statement of cash flows, is the $106,000 cash received pertinent to the $2,000 gain?
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Mr Hobson—It would be related. For detail and clarification, I would take that on notice.
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Senator JOYCE—In taking it on notice, I want to know what was involved with that. I imagine that $2,000 gain is against the written down value, which would mean it was sold extremely close to cost. I want to know where that money went, to whom it was sold and what was going on there.
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Mr Hobson—Yes.
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Senator JOYCE—Are you involved with collecting material for the preservation of indigenous languages?
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Dr Taylor—Absolutely. Some of the research that we do is on linguistics. That produces original tape materials, which do go into the archive and then are publicly available.
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Senator JOYCE—With the languages you are working on at the moment, what areas are involved? Can you give an example? Is it the Kamilaroi or Murrindindi areas?
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Dr Taylor—We probably have the best national collection in the country. We used to run a program where we produced composite CD collections of individual languages and we responded to groups from all over the nation asking for those sorts of materials. We do not run that program specifically anymore; nevertheless, through the digitisation program, we are able to make language materials available. I cannot tell you exactly where we are working on in Australia right now, but I could obtain that information if you would like it.
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Senator JOYCE—Again referring to page 65, your investing activities and cash received, you refer to ‘$70,000 from the proceeds of sales of property, plant and equipment’. That is the equivalent of a $70,000 gain in your income and expense schedule. If, by the same nature, these things are based on written-down values, that would mean their written-down value is zero. I want you to confirm exactly what is going on between those two figures. Why are they exactly the same? If the previous figure of $106,000 in sales only equals a $2,000 gain, why in every subsequent year does $70,000 of sales equal a $70,000 gain?
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Mr Hobson—I will address that at the same time, if that is all right.
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Senator JOYCE—Thank you. I want those answers to come back.
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Dr Taylor—I have some additional information about the language questions. We do have material on every language in the country—
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Senator JOYCE—Do you have Nulla?
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Dr Taylor—Yes, absolutely—including languages that are not spoken. We are currently working in the Lockhart River and Victoria River district. We supply our language materials, on request, to people all over the country. Similarly, we are very interested in constructing digital resources to allow people—
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Senator JOYCE—Do you also provide a facility where people can give information about the reason for certain indigenous locations being named as they have been and do you then also provide access to that information?
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Dr Taylor—Absolutely. Yes, we can do that.
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Senator JOYCE—Unless it is personal, I would be very interested in that.