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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 12 Hansard (19 November) . . Page.. 3769 ..

MS McRAE (continuing):

I am aware that other members of the committee will want to take some of these issues a lot further, and they will. They were not satisfied with some of the answers that were given by the Government. They were not satisfied that the compromise that the Estimates Committee had to reach - it being a six-person committee - was necessarily the best outcome in these areas. But all these issues have now been flagged in the report and through questioning. The committee's work has meant that these areas of worry will now be open to public scrutiny. Overall, this was an area of disappointment for the committee. In almost every aspect of Government activity we found major flaws. All of these, as I have said, have now been flagged and are open for the Government and the rest of the Assembly to further pursue, to ensure that improvements are made.

The third area is a quite positive mark of this committee's work and, I think, a relatively new one. I do not remember too many recommendations like these in previous reports. What, essentially, the Estimates Committee has done is offer some new initiatives for the Government to look at. Again, this is committee work at its best. The careful scrutiny by the committee of all the annual reports and budget papers has enabled members to see gaps and to offer some directions on matters of concern. There are four recommendations in this category, and I will give a brief description of each of them.

The first, No. 10, relates to assets. In short, the committee has called for a paper that details the Territory's marketable assets and liabilities. I have heard claims that such lists exist, and I sincerely hope that they do. But what was wanted by the Estimates Committee was to get some sort of a handle, for instance, on the claim - which is, of course, not one that we can test - that the Territory has about nine billion - - -

Mrs Carnell: You mean that you want an assets register?

MS McRAE: It is a bit more than just an assets register, Mrs Carnell. You may choose to contest this in the Government's response, but this was offered as a new initiative with a very specific purpose. The specific purpose was to get at marketable assets and liabilities with the - - -

Mrs Carnell: What is marketable?

MS McRAE: Mrs Carnell, it is open to you to ask the Estimates Committee for advice and guidance. This was offered as a very important initiative. Mr Speaker, Mrs Carnell can play cute games with words, but anything that is potentially for sale is marketable. If Mrs Carnell chooses to come to the Assembly for a definition of what is marketable, both the Estimates Committee and the Assembly will provide it. The recommendation was written with the specific intent of providing Assembly members and the general public with an idea of what the assets that Mrs Carnell referred to are. There was clear mention made by Mrs Carnell that, when our assets were being sold, they represented but one per cent of the total assets of the ACT.

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