Page 1943 - Week 06 - Thursday, 2 May 1991
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Mrs Nolan: Three.
MR WOOD: Three; I beg your pardon. There were five backbenchers. We are down to almost half. It is clear that the system of Executive Deputies is not working well. There has been no great attraction for some people to be an Executive Deputy because their position is confused. Certainly, at the outset, the situation was made absolutely clear in the title of Executive Deputy and in the early statements that it was to be a grandiose job and that they would be doing all sorts of executive things. Under questioning, at the time that we commenced the argument, that was somewhat modified.
But the situation remains that Mr Jensen, who is the person under discussion at the moment, has a role that is probably the most significant of those of the Executive Deputies in that, as I understand the way the system operates, he gets more work from Mr Kaine than the other Executive Deputies get from their respective Ministers.
Mr Duby: Do not be so sure.
MR WOOD: You might tell us, when you speak, what you allocate to your Executive Deputy, if you have any such person any more. Mr Jensen certainly has a very significant role in the planning process; nobody will say that he has not. If Mr Jensen is not the clear conduit between Mr Kaine and the bureaucracy, he had better stand up and tell us; that is clearly the case. Mr Jensen is carrying a great deal of the Government's work to the bureaucracy and back again. He is intimately involved in what goes on, and I give him credit because he knows that legislation and that area quite well.
Mr Humphries: He has taken an interest in it; that is why.
MR WOOD: Exactly. But he is clearly the instrument of government policy. With these extensive planning Bills coming forward, Mr Jensen, who has been closely involved in the way they have been prepared, is now chairing the committee that seeks a wider view.
Mr Jensen: Read my report.
MR WOOD: I did read your report, Mr Jensen; I gave you the credit by doing that. It simply cannot be sustained that Mr Jensen is so far removed from the office of the Minister for planning that he can also carry out that job as chair of the planning committee. When this parliament began, just on two years ago, there was a proposal in the machinations that I would chair the planning committee. As it turned out, that did not transpire and I found myself very happily as chair of another committee. It would have been quite possible, if I had been chair of that planning committee, to have been so closely interwoven with what was happening that it may have made my position untenable as a member of the Government.
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