Page 2550 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 23 August 1994
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Ms Ellis talked about the system. She talked about the process and said that she was concerned about the process. Why did she not say so during the Estimates Committee? She said not a word then. But, quite obviously, from then to now, things changed. When someone from the Labor Party stands up and says, "Estimates should not be about politics", I say, "What rubbish!". Everything we do in this place is all about politics. Let us be honest with one another, for heaven's sake. Of course it is all about politics.
Let us get back to specifics. Mr Moore referred, quite adequately and eloquently, as did Ms Szuty and all the other speakers who were there, to the Comcare issue. This is not the first time that we have talked about Comcare. I can recall standing up here and talking about Comcare last year, and the year before. We got the answer from the Chief Minister, as reflected in the Estimates Committee report, that she had had conversations with senior people in Comcare, and there was some sort of satisfaction that we are being charged a fair enough premium based on what was said by Comcare to be happening in the ACT. I am not prepared to accept that because, on the other hand, we had people like Mr Guild, from the Department of the Environment, Land and Planning, suggesting that the only reason why his department was not seeking compensation insurance elsewhere was that the Government had issued a policy directive that he was not allowed to do so.
It was not only Mr Guild. We had the ACTEW people suggesting that they were getting a better deal some years ago when they self-insured. They are not going back to that sort of situation, once again, because of Government policy. That is one area where the Estimates Committee has said time and again to the Government, "Please look at it and fix it". It has been two years now. We still have the same problem. We will be here again next year if this Government is still in office, which I doubt, and we will be talking about the same thing. That was one area.
Let us have a look at issue No. 2, the Central Coordinating Group versus the Government Business Enterprise Coordinating Group. You will recall, Madam Speaker, that the GBE Coordinating Group was the rabbit that was pulled out of the hat by Mr Lamont on the eve of the debate on the public service Bill in order to get the thing through. Everything was going to be hunky-dory because he had convinced certain unions that, with this newly established Government Business Enterprise Coordinating Group, everything was going to be all right. That is fine. Members of the Estimates Committee at that stage were prepared to accept the Minister's explanation. So we asked him how this group was going to work; whom it was going to report to; and what were its guidelines. We still have not got an answer. So the Estimates Committee, quite rightly, reported that we need to know how this important system of government is going to work. Was that a claim? Of course it was not a claim. It was an accurate and true reflection of what happened at the Estimates Committee.
Mr Berry talked about demarcation disputes and unions. Once again, if we turn to paragraph 4.13 in the Estimates Committee report, we find that this was all about the situation where two unions happened to be having a stoush as to which of their members were allowed to operate certain equipment. It was said during the Estimates Committee meetings that, if this demarcation dispute was not going ahead, there may be some substantial economic savings to the Territory. Of course all members of the Estimates Committee are concerned, and ought to be concerned, about points like that.
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