Page 4316 - Week 15 - Tuesday, 20 November 1990
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
MS FOLLETT (Leader of the Opposition) (9.58): Mr Speaker, this is the most farcical debate that I have heard in this Assembly, which is infamous for the farcical nature of many of its debates. I am ashamed to be part of it. I take the point of view that you have to have these debates.
The Estimates Committee has made some 19 recommendations in its report, and I take them seriously. I think it is a matter of extreme concern that not one of the Ministers who have spoken so far has addressed any of those recommendations.
Mr Collaery: We have given the Government,s response.
MS FOLLETT: Mr Speaker, I note that Mr Kaine has tabled the Government,s response, but in doing so he has not done this Assembly the courtesy of giving members an opportunity to study that response before they respond to the Government,s answer. So, I take both the nature of this debate and the nature of the Government's response and its lack of courtesy as a gross insult, not just to the Assembly but also to the Estimates Committee.
Mr Speaker, I believe that the Estimates Committee does perform an extremely valuable function in any Westminster system, not least in this Assembly. Because, as I said, Mr Kaine has not given us an opportunity to study the Government,s response, we are forced to speak this evening in the broadest terms. In broad terms the function of an estimates committee is one of accountability for the money that the Government has spent and is proposing to spend.
I believe that both the recommendations of the Estimates Committee and the body of the report indicate that that accountability has fallen down quite seriously in a number of different areas. Some of those areas have been touched on by other speakers this evening, and they include matters like the provision of adequate and timely information.
There is no question of members of this Assembly or the public being able to assure themselves of accountability if they do not have the information. It has to be said that on many occasions during this estimates committee process we did not have that information. In some instances it was not made available until the report was in the very late stages of drafting. That is a clearly inadequate response from the Government to the role of the Estimates Committee.
I also note formally that the Estimates Committee this year did not have the benefit of implementation of the recommendations of last year's Estimates Committee. How did that come about? Where did the system break down? Why was the Estimates Committee this year not provided with the additional supporting information that was requested by last year,s Estimates Committee? We have had lame excuses about not knowing what format or what supplementary information might have been required. The Government has
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .