Page 2432 - Week 09 - Thursday, 17 September 1992
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In the Attorney-General's area, the program objective for the administration of justice states:
To ensure access for all individuals to fair, impartial and equitable systems of law and justice within the Territory.
It is a noble objective, but unfortunately the opportunity has been lost to take major steps to meet that program objective. We are aware of how inequitable it is for the people of the ACT in terms of access to justice, in particular, to the courts. That is the subject of review by our Legal Affairs Committee, and I hope that we get to it quickly.
I think it is appropriate to make some general comments about key performance indicators. (Extension of time granted) I commented on this matter at question time, and I would like to reiterate it in the overall budget context. It is very refreshing that the budget this year is so much easier to read. For those of us who were in previous Assemblies, it really is a major step forward in readability. For those of you who have not looked at a budget before, that is probably hard to believe. In fact, it is much more readable than previous ones.
I am concerned, as was shown by my question at question time, about the removal of the key performance indicators, particularly in the light of the fact that we have so few agencies' annual reports. With those annual reports we would be able to see the performance indicators, we would be able to see how the managers have performed, and we would be able to determine whether or not the budget and the performance indicators are appropriate. I remember asking question after question of the now Leader of the Opposition, then the Chief Minister, and his reply so often was: "We let the managers manage and we measure them against their key performance indicators". I have no problem with that concept; it is a quite good concept. But, if we do not have any key performance indicators, how can we assess whether or not the managers are managing? We have a responsibility to do that. My question at question time had an appropriate reply in the first stage from the Chief Minister, who said "Yes, we will provide whatever information you need for the Estimates Committee", and I foreshadow that it will be information we need.
Her second reply did not answer the question I asked - not that that is a huge surprise. The question was, "We want to know what the performance indicators are. How did you get to this stage without knowing what the performance indicators were?". I think that says something, but fortunately we have the system of accountability in the Estimates Committee, and that system will provide us with the opportunity to assess and measure performance. The community can then understand whether or not the money is being spent wisely.
It is important for us to compare the outlook with the outcome. In these budget papers we have the outlook for this year and the outcome from last year. What we need to do is go back to Budget Paper No. 5 from last year and compare what we saw as outlook then with outcome for this year. That is another role for the Estimates Committee. I conclude my speech by saying that it is in the Estimates Committee that I look forward to going through these papers much more carefully, and to questioning both the Ministers and their bureaucrats about the details of their government. It is through the Estimates Committee that we can hold government much more accountable. I think it was one of the most successful exercises of the previous Assembly, and I hope that that success will continue.
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