Page 4002 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 23 November 1993
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It seems that the Government claims to provide the vision; and the private sector must provide the input through employment and reduction of dependence on the public sector. As Mr Service said, "Utopia comes at a cost", but at what cost - at what cost to the business community and at what cost to the overall ACT community? I repeat, Madam Speaker, that the Government would be pleasantly surprised by the underlying quality and the ability of local firms to supply its needs. That is all I have to add to this report. I recommend the recommendations contained in the report to the Assembly.
MR DE DOMENICO (9.04): Madam Speaker, I will try to be as brief as possible because I think my colleagues Mr Kaine, Mrs Carnell and Mr Westende have quite adequately covered the major points of the report. As Mr Kaine said, it contains 40 recommendations. Some of them might not be in line with the ideology or thinking of some - and I stress "some" - of the members of the Government. I think one of my colleagues alluded to the fact that this time we have a report that has been endorsed unanimously, by all members of the committee, which is no mean feat.
Like other members who have spoken, I comment on the work of the Ministers. This time I was privileged to attend all of the Estimates Committee meetings - unlike last year, when for all sorts of reasons I could not. Whether you are a Minister or a member of the Estimates Committee, it is not easy to stay there for hours and hours and provide the information at the level that it was provided this year. I think everyone who was a participant in the Estimates Committee this year ought to be congratulated.
Mr Kaine alluded to the measurement of performance against performance criteria. He thought that left a lot to be desired. No-one was able to tell members of the Estimates Committee how one could judge the effectiveness of the amount of money that is being spent by the Government in an attempt to reduce the youth unemployment situation. If governments of all political persuasions have spent millions and millions of dollars to try, as they have, to fix the scourge of unemployment, you would think you could gauge how effective that expenditure of money was and tell somebody how many jobs had been created. That was one thing that particularly stuck out, as far as I was concerned.
As I said, it was certainly a learning opportunity and a learning experience, as far as I was concerned. I must admit that I was helped in the process by being able to avail myself of the briefings, especially in the very important and complex area of the urban services portfolio, which I have responsibility for. I would like to thank Mr Connolly in particular and officers of his department for the most comprehensive briefings that I was given. They made my job a lot easier in attempting to ask the Minister, the members of his staff and others the questions that I thought were important at the time of estimates. I recommend those briefings to all members of the Assembly. I am sure that all of them have availed themselves of that opportunity. In fact, there is nothing wrong with doing that every year, to make sure that before the estimates process begins you are up to date with what is happening in the administration. That might make things a lot easier. I would like also to thank Mr Wood for the way he has allowed the people in his areas of responsibilities also to provide briefings, as have other Ministers from time to time.
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