Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 12 Hansard (21 November) . . Page.. 4049 ..

MR WHITECROSS (Leader of the Opposition) (10.11): Mr Speaker, the Government has agreed to provide the relevant Assembly committee with details about assets for consideration and comment. The Estimates Committee recommendation asked for information about the asset management strategy to be tabled in the Assembly. I am not sure why, having been asked to table it in the Assembly, the Government has instead suggested that it would give it to a committee. It seems to me that a more transparent process would have been to follow the Estimates Committee's recommendation and to table it in the Assembly. Then, if the committee wants to look at it further, it would be able to.

I am happy that the Government has agreed in principle to recommendations regarding asset management in the Territory. The recommendations were made in an attempt to improve the level of information about Territory assets in the budget. They were made to simplify the reporting of this information, to ensure that it is contained in an easily identifiable place and format. However, I draw the attention of the Assembly to the comments in the Government's response to these recommendations. The Government's response is basically a litany of examples from the New South Wales Government of their interest in asset management. This serves no purpose in responding to the Estimates Committee report. It is a purely argumentative section that has been put in there in order to somehow minimise the argument that we in this Assembly should be scrutinising the Government's asset management strategy. We will continue to scrutinise the Government's asset management strategy regardless of what strategy is pursued by the New South Wales Government.

In relation to InTACT, the Government only agreed in principle to recommendation 23. The Estimates Committee recommended that InTACT, in its general purchasing policy, apply the community benefits section of the request for offer to ACT and regional small business in respect of all its direct purchasing. The Government has agreed to this in principle. I am rather curious as to what "agreement in principle" means in this context. I do not understand why the Government could not have given an unequivocal agreement in relation to this matter.

Mr Speaker, the Estimates Committee recommendations were serious, responsible and designed to assist the Government in preparing quality budget papers which in turn will be more accountable to the Assembly and the community. The one heartening thing about the Government's response is that the Chief Minister did not repeat the kinds of comments she made in her press release. The Estimates Committee did identify some major concerns, such as the misleading job creation figures put forward by the Government. The Estimates Committee process was seriously hampered, in my view, by the failure of the Government to provide in the budget papers proper comparative information which would allow us to tell what programs had received increased funding and what programs had received less funding.

Mr Speaker, I am disappointed that in the Estimates Committee we did not receive more support from the Independents and the Greens in extracting more information about those matters. I would hope that in next year's budget there will be more information in order to allow Assembly members, the Estimates Committee and the community at large to properly compare what the Government has spent this year and what it proposes to spend next year. Openness, scrutiny and accountability are fundamental to these

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .