Page 499 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 20 February 1991
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
brought in at 30 per cent or 40 per cent, or whatever, of the original estimate. It would mean that we could get a lot more work done in the Territory a lot more quickly.
The remaining funds that were unspent from that allocation are, as the newspaper said, within the Department of Education. They can apply those funds to further capital works that are required to be done. Perhaps some can be brought forward from the 1992 year into the 1991 year, and I think that would be a good thing. All in all, I think it is foolish to suggest that the matter Mr Moore raises in his motion could even be considered by the Public Accounts Committee. I think we have all recognised that, and I certainly am opposed to the motion.
MR MOORE (12.17), in reply: Mr Speaker, it would appear that I am damned if I do and damned if I do not. I come in here and give an example and the Leader of the Opposition says, "You cannot give any examples because that pre-empts what the Public Accounts Committee is going to do". Along with the diatribe and the garbage that came out of the Chief Minister's mouth - that is the best way it can be described, and the Hansard will reveal that - members of the Government say that I just did not give enough examples to illustrate that I had a good reason for doing this.
What I did attempt to do was to come somewhere between the two, to take an example that was already a public example and say, "We have one example here. There are others. Let us now recognise the importance of public accountability". Some of the people who spoke today, and I look specifically to Mr Jensen, ought to remember that they have stood on a platform of public accountability. Under Revenue Management in the finance section of the Residents Rally policy it is stated:
To date Federal control of the ACT has not been characterised by open government and the publication of necessary financial data.
What I am seeking here is public accountability, an open system. But the Government says, "We make the decisions. Who is a committee to tell us what to do?". That is the sort of garbage we had out of the Chief Minister's mouth. That is exactly what committees are here for. That is exactly what committees do. The committees make recommendations to government for government to consider. We have seen a tremendous amount of excellent work by the committees of this Assembly, and great credit goes to them and to all the members, including Mr Jensen, who work so hard on them.
Now that I have got to Mr Jensen, I will refer to the Estimates Committee. There is a notion - more garbage from the Chief Minister and Mr Jensen - that this can be done by the Estimates Committee. The Estimates Committee works under a tremendous amount of pressure over three or four weeks to try to deal with a certain number of estimates.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .