Page 2374 - Week 11 - Thursday, 2 November 1989
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So I really think we need to evaluate what our estimates procedure is going to be in future years if it is going to follow the same pattern. I have some very real reservations about it.
We did deal with a lot of aspects of it but I think, as I said before, that it is probable that this report will be notable in future not so much for what is in it but for what is not in it. When we examine the thing in future years and look back we will say, "How was it that we failed to pursue this particular aspect of the budget on which the report is silent?".
That stems from the fact that the membership of the committee varied on any day from hour to hour. We went when we had the time. Most of us went when there was an aspect of the budget being discussed that we were particularly interested in. That was the best that we could do under the circumstances.
So I submit that the budget in its entirety has not received a consistency in examination and a consistency in treatment in this process. I am uncertain, and I am sure that other members sitting here are probably just as uncertain, that the process resulted in scrutiny of all the relevant aspects of the budget. There were probably things that we missed because, to some degree, it was a bit spasmodic - a bit hit or miss.
I would like to repeat that I believe that the support staff did an excellent job. I believe that the witnesses did the best they could in answering our questions. We were feeling our way a little bit, and they were feeling their way in quite how they should deal with us. I do not want to comment on the aspects of the content of the report but, rather, the process by which we got to developing it.
There is only one aspect of the report that I want to comment on specifically, and that is the question of the treatment of the community development fund. I think everybody in the Assembly knows that my particular field of interest is the Treasury and it is an area in which I think I am qualified to comment by my many years of experience and qualifications, both academic and practical. It has always been my contention that the community development fund should be discontinued, because I do not believe that you can have a fund into which $20m to $25m is going every year - it does not matter what the source of it is - and say that that money, no matter what annual level it reaches in the future, and it is increasing every year, can only be earmarked for those people who have been supported by that fund in the past.
It is an untenable position and I would think that the Chief Minister and Treasurer, if she stays in the job for a number of years, will increasingly come to that view. It is an untenable position that that money should be
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