Page 3996 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 23 November 1993
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which that performance criterion has been met. This year I felt that the agencies failed on that particular measure. I hope that they will take that comment in the way in which it is meant - that is, that we are simply looking for some improvement from them in this regard.
Members of the Government have to be prepared to come before the committee and state fully how their budgetary objectives are to be achieved. Amongst the 40 recommendations there are in fact three that have to do with Ministers explaining to the Estimates Committee how they intend to achieve their budgetary objectives - that is, if they are going to save X million dollars, how they intend to do it. It simply is not good enough to say, "We have set a budgetary objective of saving $5m", and at the end of the Estimates Committee hearing you have absolutely no idea how they intend to achieve it, whether they can or not - - -
Mr Berry: No; that is not true, Trevor. I gave you a generic list.
MR KAINE: Mr Berry, the Estimates Committee did not include three out of 40 recommendations on that point because we were satisfied, I can assure you. We did not waste our time writing recommendations that were not based on something fairly strong. The point is, Minister, that this is a case where it does not matter whether you are happy or not; it is the Estimates Committee that has to be happy. We are not going to be bound by what you consider to be a suitable level of performance. We ourselves will determine the level of performance that we measure you by, and we will continue to measure you by it year after year. We want you to be able to explain to us, first, what your objectives are, and, secondly, how you expect to achieve them. This year some Ministers did not measure up, obviously, or we would not have made three recommendations on the matter.
Madam Speaker, there are only a small number of the recommendations that I particularly want to refer to. I have referred to the three recommendations which require Ministers to explain to us in future how they intend to achieve their budgetary objectives, and those recommendations are not made lightly. They are made because the Estimates Committee wants to be informed and it wants to be satisfied. The second one that I want to refer to is that which requires all agencies to include, on a program basis, a reconciliation, including budget supplementation, of their budget estimate for the previous year - as shown in that year's budget papers - with the actual outcome for that year. We want to know what they did with last year's money. We want to know that they spent it. If they did not spend it, we want to know why. If they are attempting to carry some of it over into the current fiscal year, we want to know whether that is justified.
There are two recommendations which the chairperson has mentioned in connection with the home garaging of motor vehicles. I think my opinion on that matter is well known. I believe that it is a fringe benefit provided, either intentionally or unintentionally, by the Government to, as far as I know, 643 public servants out of 21,000. I think that in many cases the reasons given for allowing these vehicles to be driven home at night are quite spurious, but the Chief Minister has given an undertaking to review that matter, and I take her at face value that she will. I certainly look forward to seeing what her findings are and whether or not it is necessary and desirable that that number of vehicles be driven home every night.
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