Page 3116 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 17 November 1992
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Mr Humphries reminded us all that we needed to address the recommendations of the report and not only the additional comments which were volunteered by Mr Lamont, Ms Ellis and Mrs Grassby. He quite rightly made comparisons between this year's and previous years' Estimates Committee reports, which I believe were valuable in the debate. He also referred to comments about me being seen by some people as a stooge for the Liberals in terms of the substance of the report presented. I might put it to members that if I am seen as a stooge of both the Labor Party and the Liberal Party I must be doing something right.
Turning to Mr Cornwell's comments, I agree with Mr Cornwell that ample opportunity was given to Estimates Committee members to attend the meeting of 5 November, and I agree that recommendations arising from this report should be acted on. That is what the whole process is all about. He also commented on the length of time for which the Estimates Committee conducted its public hearings. I do note that we commenced our first hearing on 24 September and concluded on 13 October, which was some considerable time. We all need to be aware that certain factors impinge on the scheduling of the hearings, most significantly at times the availability of Ministers and senior officers. I am aware that we scheduled some of the public hearings to suit Mr Connolly in particular, due to the birth of his child, and also for the Chief Minister in her return to the Estimates Committee with Treasury officials on 13 October.
Mrs Grassby quite rightly identified the Estimates Committee process as an important part of the Legislative Assembly's work and drew attention to the absence of Liberal members from the hearings, and I agree that that is an important point. The estimates process will, in fact, improve with more of the opposition members present during the public hearings. She also referred to the transcripts and tried to give us some examples of Mr Berry actually answering questions. I think the Estimates Committee report speaks for itself in this regard. Mr Berry quoted from the same page that I was going to quote from in my remarks, page 222, and the six occasions when Mr Berry gave the same answer to various questions by Mr Humphries and Mrs Carnell.
Mrs Grassby suggested that I conduct an inquiry into the leaking of the document to the Canberra Times. I say quite categorically that it was not I who leaked the report to the Canberra Times as chair of the committee. Mrs Carnell said that the committee report is one of substance, which I was pleased to hear. There were lots of areas where the comments were positive, but criticisms are considered to be constructive and I believe that they were.
I thank Mr De Domenico for his compliments to me as chair during the inquiry process. Mr Moore made the comment that our Labor backbenchers chose different priorities for that final week when the report was being finalised and talked about the appearance of ACT Electricity and Water for the first time this year. I agree with his comments that the Estimates Committee should look at what we did well during the process and what we can improve on in future years.
I appreciated hearing the Ministers' comments about the various sections of the report that they had responsibility for. Mr Wood quite rightly raised the issue of primary school size. In fact this report was designed to do this very thing. It was designed to draw Ministers' attention to particular issues that the Estimates Committee is concerned about and perhaps will follow up in some way in
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .