Page 4287 - Week 15 - Tuesday, 20 November 1990
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the Committee. But later on, when we were able to ask the Under Treasurer, the Under Treasurer said, on page 1439 of the transcript:
I think the answer is that the money was not spent. Treasury took it off the budgets of the relevant programs and the money was not available to be spent.
Mr Speaker, would it not be pleasant if we had the Under Treasurer to ask questions of during question time? How much more informed this place might be. The other obvious aspect of concern was in relation to travel. What an extraordinary finding of the committee that in comparable periods of time the Follett Government spent just under $7,000 on ministerial travel while this lot over here spent just under $40,000 - mostly, it should be pointed out, the Attorney-General and the Minister for Finance and Urban Services. Mr Kaine travelled at about the same rate as Ms Follett and Mr Humphries, given particularly the nature of his two portfolios which take up the bulk of government expenditure, travelled an amount that we cannot particularly quibble with. By far the bulk of that extraordinarily extravagant junketeering was by these two Ministers in the centre at the front bench. How embarrassing it was for them to have that put forward.
The other area of concern is obviously health. That is where the big lie is made apparent. This Government claims to be careful with public expenditure, but this Government is a big taxing, big spending Government. It is clear from budget paper No. 2 that your taxation revenue is 20 per cent up on last year's budget and your expenditure is equally well up - a figure for total recurrent expenditure in budget paper No. 2 of 30 per cent. This is a big spending, big taxing Government, spending tens of millions on hospital redevelopment projects, throwing money down the drain to save $8m a year, says the Minister for Health. We are going to spend $158m - it will be a lot more, but he says that we are going to spend $158m to save $8m. But, as I said to him during the Estimates Committee, if that is your logic, go across the road to Westpac; you will get 12 per cent and save a lot more on $158m. It is gross financial irresponsibility and big spending.
MR STEFANIAK (8.33): Mr Speaker, I have been on a number of committees, of course, including last year,s Estimates Committee; but it was with some trepidation that I went on this committee, especially after all the drivel spoken by the Opposition for about an hour and a half when I was put on it because Carmel Maher had to leave the Assembly on something which came up and precluded her from continuing on the committee. So when I went to my first meeting I was not too sure what to expect.
I must say that going through the deliberations was probably a lot less tedious and difficult than the very lengthy hearings which the Estimates Committee had this
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