Page 2540 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 23 August 1994
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we have done again this year only to be ignored. It is an appalling affront to the committee, and an appalling affront to this Assembly, that year after year we have to put in our reports something to the effect of recommendation No. 13 this year. That recommendation is:
. the Government puts in place appropriate performance indicators which will enable effective scrutiny of the success or otherwise of various employment programs.
Why is it that the public servants, particularly the senior public servants, do not want to have performance indicators that can be measured? Why do they resist performance indicators that can be measured? It is because they do not want to be measured. I must say that it is with delight that I see that the Auditor-General has taken on his appropriate watchdog role and is directing specific attention to performance indicators. Until we get what we have asked for every single year of this Assembly, until we get some performance indicators that are measurable, we are still going to have difficulty with accountability. Madam Speaker, I draw attention to the fact that last year the committee actually commended one department - as I recall, it was the Canberra Institute of Technology - for its efforts in this area. It can be done, but there is resistance to it.
Madam Speaker, I think it was constructive for us to have asked about the 2 per cent overall cuts; but I also think it was damning of those parts of the Government and those parts of the departments that were not able to identify their 2 per cent cuts in the light of what extra money they received. This 2 per cent across-the-board cut thing was a fiction, as I interpret it. Invariably, while we found somebody who had a 2 per cent cut, they had certainly made up for it in many other ways.
I think it is damning, although a constructive comment was offered again this year, that the Government has not been able to handle the issue of Comcare. Clearly, there have been significant increases in Comcare fees. Quite a number of the people who appeared before us recognised and accepted that there were problems with our relationship with Comcare, and the increased fees that Comcare were charging. Whether the answer is to allow departments to go to private enterprise or not is a question that I think still remains to be answered. The evidence presented to us would appear to indicate that that would be the case, that we do require some competition; but we must be very sure, if we go into that competition, that the competition with Comcare offers the same sort of rehabilitation, in particular, as Comcare offers for the same money. Those issues still need to be examined.
Madam Speaker, there are many areas where this committee has been constructive, and there are just as many areas where the Government can consider something damning. One area where we have made constructive comments, I think, and the Government ought not take it as damning, is recommendation No. 25, which says:
. the Government respond expeditiously to the Transport Regulation Study and urgently consider radically changing the way in which motor vehicles are inspected in the ACT, by closing at least one Testing Station, following consultation with the relevant unions.
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