Page 4581 - Week 15 - Wednesday, 20 November 1991
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The committee will provide a forum for members to question Ministers and officials on matters connected with the funds the Government is seeking from the Assembly. Consistent with Commonwealth practice, the Government envisages that the committee would also be able to extend its questioning to the general operation, administration and policies of the agencies of the Government.
She was right about asking questions. But there was no commitment, obviously, to the notion that people would answer them. On 4 July 1989, the Chief Minister said:
The Government proposed the development of a comprehensive Assembly committee system which will allow extensive scrutiny of the actions of the Executive and the Administration. In particular, we proposed the establishment of a public accounts committee with unfettered powers to review all matters involving public expenditure.
Yet we find Ministers appearing before our committees and refusing to answer questions. Concern was expressed in the report of the Estimates Committee, at page 3, where it was noted that:
... during the hearings Ministers -
plural -
displayed varying levels of insight into departmental operations and varying degrees of willingness to be forthcoming.
Later on in the report, at page 20 - and now we are coming to the specifics - it was further noted that:
... the Minister for Health chose to avoid answering direct questions on the financial control and management of the health budget.
Not only did he decline to answer direct questions in the Estimates Committee but he declines to answer them here as well. I would ask Mr Berry where he thinks he derives the authority to refuse to answer legitimate questions coming from members, not only here but in the committee inquiries as well. He seems to believe that he is above the authority of this house; that somehow he is quarantined from the normal requirements of a legislature such as this.
To put the thing in some sort of perspective, Mr Stevenson referred to the number of questions which one could expect to have dealt with in a normal question time. I think it can be shown that, over the life of this Assembly, we could achieve an average of 16 to 18 questions in a 30-minute question time when things are going well. The statistics show that we have achieved that on some days. But last
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