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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 6 Hansard (23 May) . . Page.. 1722 ..

MS TUCKER (5.07): Mr Speaker, the Greens will be supporting this legislation. Later I will be moving an amendment that calls for a statutory review of the legislation in three years' time. The reason I will be putting forward this amendment is that the Greens do have some concerns. This legislation is introducing some radical changes into the Public Service of the ACT and, while we can see some benefits in terms of increased transparency and clarity in defining financial reporting mechanisms, there are potential negative implications which I do not think have been fully explored. There is always the danger that social justice and environmental protection will be given a lesser priority than economic efficiency. There is also a danger that with radical reforms we solve one problem only to create another. We have to be very careful to ensure that, with all the focus on delivering outputs to consumers, the distinctive tasks and responsibilities of government are not lost.

Just as the Greens have seriously questioned the merits of competition policy, we question these reforms. They are part and parcel of the same ideology. We certainly want to avoid repeating the mistakes that other places have made, and it is disappointing that this Bill is being debated before the Public Accounts Committee has a chance to report on its trip to New Zealand, where it is going to look at the financial reforms that have been introduced there. We do have some evidence already, however. The report on a study program on structural adjustment and social change in New Zealand highlighted a number of problems with the introduction of broad, market-based reforms into government, and, in particular, what the focus on outputs means for the community. For example, detailed specification of outputs introduced rigidities that made a more flexible and client-focused approach difficult, and usually cut across holistic services or attempts at the bundling of services; performance requirements focused on what was easily measured and reverted to an emphasis on quantity over quality; development and preventative activities received little or no priority; and detailed accountability requirements added costs to service providers that could be met only by diverting funds from service provision.

The legislation before us introduces the concepts of outcomes, outputs and the Government as a purchaser of outputs. We have said before, and say again, that the success or otherwise of these reforms depends on the definitions of outcomes and outputs, and also the performance measurements we use. I have expressed earlier my disappointment about the lack of substance in the Government's outcomes statement. The idea that the whole range of government services can be individually specified as outputs is also quite reductionist. How these outcomes are evaluated is through performance measures which are defined as quantifiable units of measurement. They establish how performance will be judged for each output by translating it into a measured value.

Obviously, a key question is: What are the outputs, who monitors them and how do we evaluate them? Who is on the outputs committee? We asked this question the other day and it is concerning that mostly financial managers are represented. It is unclear to me how organisations or individuals whose performance is being measured have an opportunity to have input into those performance measures. This legislation also reinforces a bottom line approach to budgeting. Again, that can have real benefits, but it is also dangerous. I said last week in debate about the second Appropriation Bill that if the health budget is to be cut it is more likely to be the less visible but equally important services that get the chop.

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