Page 2615 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 24 August 1993
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before it even got to me. I think that there is a committee secretary that we can be very proud of, and I commend him very much for his work. Again I wish to express my sincere thanks to the other members of the committee. Without the level of cooperation and understanding that we display within that committee, we would not have come up with this report. I, along with all of the previous speakers, very strongly recommend this report to the Assembly.
MR DE DOMENICO (8.41): Madam Speaker, there is very little left for me to say, but I would like to endorse some particular comments made by all members of the committee. The first one relates to documentation. All members of the committee have spoken about the level and quality of documentation. Perhaps the most salient comments were those made by the chairman, Mr Lamont, and Ms Szuty. Once and for all, people in the bureaucracy must realise that, notwithstanding what might have happened in the past, they now have elected - I stress the word "elected" - members of this Assembly to deal with. Elected members of this Assembly - perhaps more than ever after the change of the electoral system - have certain geographic and other vested interests that they have to look after as well as the interests of the people of the ACT. I think it was the committee chairman who said, "Lo and behold, next year, if the documentation is not of a quality that satisfies the committee and enables it to make a sound decision, perhaps that documentation will be thrown out until it does meet that criterion".
I would like to concentrate my comments on recommendation 9. Mr Kaine, I think, quite adequately covered it, but I must stress it. This relates to a concept called value management. I am aware that management concepts come and management concepts go; but, in view of the incredible knowledge available to the people of the ACT in terms of value management, we need to look very carefully at the benefits of such concepts. I am reminded, Madam Speaker, for example, that in the United States the houses of parliament are now considering legislation - I stress the word "legislation" - to make sure that any projects costing over a certain amount must go through certain processes and certain documentation before those houses of parliament approve them. Hopefully, we will not get to that stage in the ACT, but that depends on the quality of the documentation presented to the PDI Committee in years to come. I think that is one recommendation that the Government needs to heed.
Mr Lamont talked about liaison and the relationship between organisations like Treasury and Public Works. We know that from time to time it is very difficult to make sure that everybody consults with everybody else; but, in such important areas as the public works program, it is important that there be close liaison between the two organisations, to ensure that they are all fully aware of what is going on, that they are saying the same thing and are working on the same sorts of priorities, if possible. Other speakers, Mr Kaine in particular, made comments about priorities. The question that needs to be answered is: Who makes the decisions on priorities, under what circumstances are those decisions made, and on what documentation, philosophies and what have you are they based? It is important to know those things.
Mr Lamont: The Executive.
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