Page 2553 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 23 August 1994
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However, I believe also that the committee, and especially its chair, have responsibilities. I believe that one of those responsibilities is to deal fairly and with dignity with all their witnesses. I do not believe that this was the case in relation to Mr Faichney. He was harassed. There is no doubt about that. He was harassed by Mr Humphries in the course of Mr Humphries engaging in what was a political stunt. In my view, it is up to the chair of the committee to maintain control of the committee and to ensure that this does not occur. What kind of a message does it send to other public servants and other potential witnesses when they see this happening to one of their number? I realise that it was not an easy task for Ms Szuty, especially in view of the extremely sustained and vociferous attack that was mounted by Mr Humphries.
I would like to turn to some of the particular points that have been raised in the course of the debate this evening. First of all, I turn to one of Mr Humphries's points. I can advise Mr Humphries that the total revenue from business franchise fees on petroleum was $25.65m in 1993-94, compared to a budget estimate of $26.2m. That is for all petroleum business franchise fees. That variation of $0.543m is well within the normal level of variation expected. Indeed, I have been advised by Treasury that there was a timing issue which did affect the final result. There was a very significant payment made immediately after the close of the ledger on 30 June. In particular in relation to the diesel fuel receipts, my advice is that they are in line with expectations.
Madam Speaker, I would like to refer to some of Mr Moore's comments. He is not here. He made the comment that the Government has treated the Estimates Committee with appalling affront. That is simply not true. Over the years, we have accepted the vast majority of estimates committees' recommendations. Mr Moore raised the issue of performance indicators. We agree that we need to continue efforts to improve performance indicators. This is not a unique situation in the ACT; far from it. Madam Speaker, all governments recognise the difficulties with performance indicators. The ACT is participating with the Commonwealth and all of the States to improve indicators of performance, efficiency and effectiveness through a process that is being chaired by the Industry Commission. We will also, of course, fully support the Auditor-General's review of performance indicators. I think we have achieved a great deal of improvement in this area, particularly with the Canberra Institute of Technology, with improved indicators of maintenance of training effort, and we will be extending that to other programs as well.
Mr Kaine made some comments on underexpenditure. I would like to respond by saying that the budget performance was well within the tolerance limits that all governments, through the Australian Loan Council, agree to. That tolerance is 3 per cent of revenue. I think it is very important to look at the reasons for the underexpenditure. On the capital side, as members are well aware, many of the delays in expenditure have been totally beyond the Government's control. For example, the expenditure on the Magistrates Court and on the hospice has been held up by National Capital Planning Authority considerations, to put it politely. There have even been some delays caused by the PDI Committee reviews. On the recurrent side, the underexpenditure was $20.7m. That represents savings with future benefits to Territory budgets. I hope that Mr Kaine and others are not suggesting that we should go on spending up to the maximum limit simply for the sake of it, so that we can say that the budget was balanced. I will not do that. I will take the savings if they are available.
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