Page 4291 - Week 15 - Tuesday, 20 November 1990
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The report is considerably more detailed than the report of the estimates committees on the hill. I think there was some further good fine tuning of this year,s committee over last year's committee, which was the first by this Assembly, which can only benefit the operations of this Assembly.
I would, however, remind all members of the Assembly that the Estimates Committee is there to adequately and properly scrutinise government. It really takes away from the stature and work of that committee for people to indulge in cheap political shots and I think our future Assembly should be a little bit wary of that.
MR MOORE (8.42): Mr Speaker, unfortunately, because I have been at a public meeting, I arrived at the Assembly a little late this evening and missed the speeches of the other members. I hope I do not cross too much of what they have said. It is interesting to note some of the unjustified comments that Mr Stefaniak was just making about scoring cheap political points.
The role of the Estimates Committee clearly is to look at government expenditure, to scrutinise it in detail, to draw attention to where decisions are being made that are not based on good information and that may mean the inappropriate spending of money, and to draw attention to where decisions are made with the intention of saving money when that may not be appropriate. So in fact the issue of school closures and other issues that were drawn attention to by the Estimates Committee were appropriate and valid issues and it is of great credit to the Estimates Committee and each member of that Estimates Committee that they were prepared to stand up and make public the information they had found out.
Mr Jensen is just leaving, but perhaps he can hear me. It is a credit to Mr Jensen, as chair of that committee, that he was prepared at all times to allow people to question exhaustively and to present their opinions. As I have said, I believe that Mr Jensen played it straight at all times.
Mr Duby: It is a shame that you did not.
MR MOORE: I hear an interjection from Mr Duby who says that it is a shame that I did not play it straight. I can understand why he feels a little jaded in his position. I claim that I certainly did play it straight. The Leader of the Opposition, Ms Follett, stood aside and allowed me to go on the Estimates Committee. The Alliance Government was not prepared to allow the Estimates Committee to work in a completely bipartisan fashion, the way it had on the previous year; but instead set it up in such a way that they had the numbers on the committee.
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