Page 4430 - Week 15 - Wednesday, 21 November 1990
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The committee, in fact, expressed its concern that the Chief Minister did not consider himself accountable for ministerial travel, although it fell within program 2 which is indeed part of the Chief Minister's portfolio. To the Estimates Committee, the Chief Minister stated that each Minister was responsible for their own travel that they undertake. Of course, as we saw, within that program, that failure to take responsibility, that lack of accountability, had led to an enormous increase in the cost of ministerial travel to the point of, I think, nearly 500 per cent on what had been spent under my own Government. I think that is a matter that the Chief Minister does need to address this Assembly on, even if it is only to say that, yes, he does take responsibility and will be accountable for that part of his portfolio. If he does not, who does? I think that is the question, Mr Speaker.
There is also a further question. We are looking at the whole of division 20, I take it, in this part of the debate. There is also the question, therefore, of technical and further education. In his supplementary remarks to the Estimates Committee report, Mr Moore has pointed out that the area of technical and further education is, in fact, the area where the largest cut has been made in this Government's budget. Again, that matter was not really addressed in the farcical debate yesterday on the Estimates Committee's report. I believe it is a very serious matter. There is no doubt in my mind that technical and further education provides an essential service to the community, and it is a service that is provided very often - - -
MR SPEAKER: Order! Ms Follett, I think you are into division 50.
MS FOLLETT: No, division 20, technical and further education. I am sorry. Yes, I beg your pardon. I will save my remarks on that then. The only other matter that I wanted to refer to in the ACT corporate management area concerns the compiling of information in a way that is suitable for consideration by people who are interested. That, again, is a matter that the Chief Minister should take careful note of, and I have now had an opportunity to read his response to the Estimates Committee's remarks on that. I do not believe that the response that we have so far is adequate.
I think that it has now been two years in a row that the estimates committees have asked for that kind of information to be consolidated and for that to be done at a particular level, and the undertaking that the Chief Minister has given is really no undertaking at all. If he is to take responsibility for corporate management - and I believe that he is willing to do that - then he has to grasp these issues quite firmly and give very firm directions to the bureaucracies involved. And that relates not just to the matter of provision of information but also to the discretionary expenditure of ministerial travel money.
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