Page 3115 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 17 November 1992
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drawn attention to the fact that very important elements of the estimates process have been soiled by the activities of the Liberals. In particular, I smell a bit of Mr Humphries amongst the stench of - - -
Mr Connolly: Instead of "sneak", you could say "bad person".
MR BERRY: Bad person, okay. "Sneak" I withdraw, but "bad person" is okay. There is a smell of undue political opportunity that has been taken in the report. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves. The report had the potential at one time to be a rewarding document for everybody in the Assembly, but I think the dirty marks that have been left on the estimates process have spoiled it. I hope you learn your lesson, but I doubt that you will. I have been trying to teach you for ages, but you are a bunch of slow learners and I do not expect any improvement over the next couple of years.
MS SZUTY (10.32), in reply: I would like to thank members for their comments on the Estimates Committee's report over the last two-and-a-half hours, which I found very interesting. I would like to comment on each member's contribution to the debate as I see it. Firstly, Mr Kaine quite rightly commended the estimates process. He believes that we should concentrate, in our remarks, on the proper conduct of members in the process. I believe that that proper conduct has been fulfilled in the majority of cases. I thank Mr Kaine for his comments on my chairmanship of the committee. He sees me as not being a puppet of the Government, and I am thankful for that, because at no time in the process did I consider myself to be a puppet of the Government in the chairing of the Estimates Committee.
I thank Mr Lamont for his comments on my chairing of the hearings. He made a number of positive comments about the Department of the Environment, Land and Planning, and TAFE, which were endorsed by the committee. He also spoke about his additional comments and said that they were based on the second draft of the Estimates Committee report. I would remind members that Mr Lamont could have asked the secretariat for a copy of the final report on Wednesday, 4 November, before we considered it at the meeting on Thursday, 5 November, at which he was not present, and he still would have had time to frame his additional comments in the context of the final report. Mr Lamont also suggested that we should somehow conduct an inquiry process into the leaking of the report to the Canberra Times. He suggested that perhaps I, as committee chair, could do that. As Mr Lamont would be aware, I am not chair of the Estimates Committee any longer. I ceased to be chair of the Select Committee on Estimates on 6 November, the day we reported to the Speaker of this Assembly.
Mr Westende made some comments on the estimates process and acknowledged that he was not here for all of the hearings. He did say that he contributed in a positive way to the report and produced some questions for other members of the Liberal Party to ask during the hearings.
Ms Ellis talked about her additional comments in a number of interesting ways, variously describing them as a minority report and further on as a dissenting report, which I found interesting. She also talked about her priorities as chair of the Social Policy Committee, which Mr Moore also alluded to during his remarks. I would suggest to members that Ms Ellis did prioritise her tasks during that week and the Estimates Committee on this occasion did not come out at the top of the list.
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