Page 881 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 27 March 1990
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I also note that the committee report does not actually deal with estimates. I have taken on board Mr Jensen's comments in his speech just now about estimates but I do not believe that the committee report has come to any conclusions about it. My party prefers Mr Speaker's proposal, that standing committees deal with estimates in the area over which they have responsibility. I think that that breaks up the enormous workload involved in estimates and puts it into committees where it is quite appropriately dealt with, rather than seeking to set up a special committee over a very short time where the expertise in particular subject areas may not be as great as it is in the committees themselves. I would just like to put on record that we do support that proposal. I notice that the Government favours a separate estimates committee; I think we could still debate that matter.
To conclude, Mr Speaker, the Labor members in the Assembly are more than willing to participate in the committees. We have had a number of discussions on who should be a representative on what committee. We have made decisions on that matter; we are ready to proceed and I am very pleased to see this report finally on the table. It has been a long time coming. I commend to the Assembly the committee system and especially the work done by our own member, Mr Wood, on the committees to date.
MR HUMPHRIES (Minister for Health, Education and the Arts) (4.11): Mr Speaker, I am pleased to see this report come down at last. It is a significant contribution to the running of our committee system in the Assembly, and I regret that I was not able to take part in that particular inquiry while I was a member of that committee. However, I do think it is helpful that we finally had some adjudication, if you like, on the issues that were raised by the various parties in that forum. I think we can certainly find worse ways of dealing with the problems than the ones we have addressed.
The report is significant for the development of this Assembly. Committees are an essential component of the democratic process, particularly of the development by us in our own idiosyncratic way, perhaps, of the Westminster tradition in Australia. I think it is worth pondering just briefly the very many benefits of the committee system overall.
First of all, of course, the committee system provides oversight and scrutiny of the Executive and contributes towards a better informed administration and government policy-making process. I hear the claims of Ms Follett about the weaknesses and dangers of too much integration of executive and Assembly committees. I am far from convinced that that occurs in any of the models put forward in this report or, indeed, by the final view of the committee itself. But it is worth noting those concerns, keeping an overview of them and ensuring that we do not unwittingly
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