Page 3916 - Week 15 - Tuesday, 15 December 1992
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MR MOORE (9.10): Madam Speaker, in some ways it would have been easier for me to deal with this amendment had I been given prior notice that Mr Cornwell was intending to present it. On the other hand, we have had the benefit of listening to the arguments presented by Mr Cornwell and Mr Kaine and the response by the Minister.
I must say that I am persuaded by the Minister that there is appropriate accountability through the normal budget system and that we are not at risk of losing huge sums of money. I suppose that, at best, the risk - and I am talking about risk, not about any inference in terms of the Housing Trust; rather to the contrary - would be that the money might go towards one builder rather than another, or one development proposal rather than another. That is the level of risk that appears to be involved. Considering the work done to date by the Housing Trust, I think it is appropriate that we provide them with the flexibility to move. I am certainly prepared to support the Minister in increasing the sum for that reason, and therefore I intend to vote against the amendment.
MR KAINE (Leader of the Opposition) (9.11): Madam Speaker, I am interested in Mr Moore's position, but I assume that he has misunderstood the argument I was putting. First of all, he said that accountability is through the budgetary process. There is no accountability process through the budget. This Assembly appropriates very large sums of money to ministerial portfolios for expenditure. The accountability arrangements follow from that but they are not part of it. The accountability arrangements have to do with the responsibilities that you put on managers, who are responsible to the Minister for how they manage the money. The budgetary process has nothing at all to do with it. They are two totally different procedures. My concern is not whether Bill Smith gets too many contracts as opposed to Joe Bloggs. That is not what I am on about. What are the guidelines? How does the Housing Commissioner know when he or she has gone beyond the guidance of the Government? I presume that the Government issues some guidelines; I do not know how else the commissioner knows what he or she is supposed to do.
The Minister talked about redevelopment projects, and he outlined one. We know which one he was referring to; I do not intend to describe it specifically. Maybe that is a reasonable size redevelopment, but what happens if the Housing Commissioner decides to buy six houses in Forrest and redevelop them? Does the Minister not want to know how much money is being spent, where it is going to go, what it is going to go for? Is it within the guidelines of the Government? If the Minister is not across what the manager is doing, how can he know? How can he know until after the event? That is not what accountability is about. Accountability is about knowing beforehand and exercising the ministerial role - - -
Mr Connolly: Yes, on policy, not the contract.
MR KAINE: Exactly. We are talking about policy, not whether Bill Smith gets the contract or not. That is not what I am talking about. I am interested, and you ought to be, I submit, Minister, in where in a general sense the money is going and in what amounts. If you do not know that, how can you argue that you are managing your budget? Your responsibility to this Assembly as a Minister is to be accountable to the Assembly, which makes the appropriation in the first place.
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