Page 3466 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 25 November 1992
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I cannot, the Opposition cannot, stop the Government passing the Appropriation Bill, Madam Speaker. Convention determines that, and given the numbers I cannot stop the Government passing any program estimate either; but I can register a protest at the Government's failure, inaction, indecision and patronising self-indulgence by moving that program 2, the executive budget, be appropriated $10 less for 1992-93 than the Bill proposes. This, at least, is a symbolic reflection of my view of the failure of the members of the Executive, the Follett Ministry, to meet their obligations to the community.
MS SZUTY (4.26): In responding to the Appropriation Bill 1992-93 I would like to comment once only and address my comments to the Chief Minister's ministerial statement on the Government response to the report by the Estimates Committee on the Appropriation Bill 1992-93 and to the Government's actual response to the recommendations as tabled by the Chief Minister. In general terms I regard both responses to the work of this year's Estimates Committee as encouraging and largely favourable, and there is ample evidence for these comments.
I endorse the Chief Minister's comments that the detailed examination of government expenditures carried out by the committee has, as in previous years, made a strong contribution to open an accountable government. As I said in my speech when I tabled the report of the Estimates Committee, the estimates process is important, and it is important that both members participating and Ministers and their officers participating regard the process as serious and an important and legitimate task of the parliament. If the process is approached in this way the wider community can have every confidence that the ACT Legislative Assembly is acting in its best interests.
Many particular positive comments have been made by the Chief Minister in her appreciation of the committee's comments about the improvement in the format of the budget papers and in the timeliness and quality of the explanatory notes. I am pleased to note the Government's commitment to continuing improvements in the standard of performance indicators which in themselves enable government performance to be effectively measured. I am also pleased to note the Government's commitment to improvements in the quality and format of information that will be provided to next year's Estimates Committee and agree that inconsistencies and overlaps between different papers must be eliminated.
I now propose to deal with the Government's response to particular recommendations in turn. It is pleasing to note that the Government has supported the committee's recommendations on the inclusion of corporate plans in material provided to the committee and the need for corrections to documents to be notified to members in writing before public hearings commence. This acknowledges the fact that members of the Estimates Committee need to be properly informed in order to perform what the Chief Minister has acknowledged is a time consuming and difficult task.
Several comments have been made about the committee's recommendations regarding the identification of administrative operational expenses. The most interesting of these concern the committee's request for information where the total actual expenditure or estimated expenditure is greater than $50,000, and where individual items within those categories are greater than $50,000. The Government's response seems to follow the reverse of the philosophy that if
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