Page 2609 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 24 August 1993
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Probably the most significant recommendation that we have made, apart from that desire to elicit further information about what is going on in the total project, focuses on specific projects. Recommendation 9 states:
Before a project is placed on the draft Capital Works Program for consideration by the Executive -
and then, of course, by the Standing Committee on Planning, Development and Infrastructure -
a clearly defined user brief should have been developed by the agency concerned and enough technical assessment completed to ensure the nature of the project is defined.
In other words, when it comes to the Planning Committee, the project should be capable of standing alone in terms of its justification. That means that a proper cost-benefit analysis should have been done to justify the project coming into the capital works program. Of course, we had also asked last year, and we failed to get it this year, that there be a proper whole-of-life costing in connection with that project so that the committee can see not only how it fits into this year's program but also the effect it is going to have on future years' budgets.
We believe that as time goes by the Planning Committee is becoming much more perceptive as to what should be presented to it and to the Executive in terms of requests to put projects into the capital works program. We are becoming better informed, and we are seeking more and more information from the Government and its agencies about the projects that come in. Those comments, Madam Speaker, indicate a trend not only in the Planning Committee but also in the Public Accounts Committee, the Estimates Committee and all of the other committees of the Assembly. More and more information is being sought. We are becoming much better informed about what is going on, and that is leading to a much more searching approach to the propositions that the Government puts to us, that the public service puts to us, so that we can satisfy ourselves that what is being proposed is in the best interests of the community and that it can and should properly be funded from our consolidated revenues.
The next recommendation that I want to comment on, Madam Speaker, is recommendation 14, which has to do specifically with the proposed urban infill at North Watson, North Duffy-Holder and the Tuggeranong Homestead. We specifically recommended that none of the money included in the budget - and I think from memory there is about $5m in round figures - should be spent on any one of those three projects until the process to vary the plan has been completed; that is, until it has been considered by the Planning Authority, it has been considered by the Executive and it has been considered by the Planning, Development and Infrastructure Committee. Only then, once it has gone through that entire process, and endorsement has been given to those three projects proceeding, should any of the money in this year's budget be expended. We understand the need for the Government to make provision for this expenditure; but we are insisting that it not occur until the total process is complete, until everybody in that process is satisfied that these developments should go ahead.
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