Page 2736 - Week 09 - Thursday, 26 August 1993
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With 17 members who deal with each other all the time, who know each other, those unpleasant issues are much more difficult to handle than in a bigger parliament. Those are the sorts of issues we have dealt with. This approach comes some way to addressing them, and I think it is the best compromise. Madam Speaker, I commend the report to the Assembly.
Debate (on motion by Mr De Domenico) adjourned.
ESTIMATES 1993-94 - SELECT COMMITTEE
Alteration to Resolution of Appointment
Debate resumed from 17 August 1993, on motion by Mrs Carnell:
That paragraph (1) of the resolution of the Assembly of 17 June 1993 appointing a Select Committee on Estimates 1993-94 be amended by adding at the end "and any revenue measures proposed by the Government in the 1993 Budget".
MS FOLLETT (Chief Minister and Treasurer) (11.16): Madam Speaker, I am a great supporter of the Estimates Committee because I consider that it does a great deal to ensure that the business of government is accountable and open. The work the Estimates Committee has done year by year has been of enormous value to the Assembly as a whole and to the Government as well. I think all members would agree that there are a great many opportunities for insights, for scrutiny and for reporting on the business of government and the estimates of expenditure that are provided each year.
The prime role of the Estimates Committee is, of course, to scrutinise estimates of expenditure, and in the motion I moved earlier to establish the Estimates Committee that prime role was explicitly stated. That motion was supported unanimously by members, and it is therefore somewhat strange to have an amendment to the motion come up at this stage. Nevertheless, I accept that the business of the Estimates Committee is largely in the hands of the presiding member, Ms Szuty, and the members of the committee. We have a practice in this chamber - a practice instituted by me and maintained - of having a very open and widely representative Estimates Committee, and I believe that that is appropriate.
It has occurred in successive Estimates Committee hearings and in Estimates Committee reports that matters relating to revenue have been generally scrutinised as well, and for that reason I will not be opposing the motion before us. I believe that it is up to the members of the Estimates Committee how they wish to conduct themselves, and I know that they have previously had some review of revenue measures. I will, however, move an amendment to change the word "measures" to the word "estimates" because I believe that revenue measures are more appropriately debated and scrutinised within the Assembly as a whole. It is the business of the Assembly to look at the underlying principles, the underlying philosophy, in a policy the Government is putting forward, and that is the way I view revenue measures - as encompassing the whole policy.
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