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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 12 Hansard (21 November) . . Page.. 4079 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

had the massive overspend in health, because, for one thing, we would not have folded and given in to the VMOs as you did. We would not have done quite a few things that have got us into the terrible situation that we are in now. What we would not have done is most important.

Mr Speaker, this Government's record stinks when it comes to the economy. It stinks when it comes to jobs. The jobs program that it has put forward in this budget is a phoney. You claim that you will create 2,700 jobs. It has been shown that that is completely phoney. There are 2,600 more people on the unemployment list since you came to office. I would be trying to make a claim for 2,700 extra jobs in the budget, too; but we want to see the numbers. So far you have not produced much but gloom in the ACT economy. Do not give us all this nonsense about how the economy is recovering because of the things that you have done. All of the things that you have done have created the hole that we are in.

MS TUCKER (11.59): Mr Speaker, I will make some comments covering general aspects of the whole budget, because the Chief Minister's Department is obviously the department that is driving most of this Government's agenda. It is the department that is setting priorities. It is the department that devised the purchaser-provider model, the outcomes-outputs models and the competitive reforms and is turning the business of government into business, full stop. It is this department that has had oversight of all the Government's development of indicators. Many of these issues I spoke about at length in my comments on the Estimates Committee report the other day, so here I will concentrate more on the Government's priorities.

I would like to comment initially on the Government's response to the recommendation in the Estimates Committee report about indicators. Last year the Estimates Committee recommended that, in future budgets and annual reports, social justice and environmental objectives and outcomes be identified on a program-by-program basis. The Government agreed to this in principle. Hopefully, most people would agree to this in principle. It makes good sense. The question is: Are we going to do anything about it? Are we going to take this process of ecologically sustainable development seriously? This year the recommendation to develop more specific environmental and social indicators has also been agreed to in principle by this Government. I sincerely hope that this year a solid effort is put into integrating the management and assessment of government agencies. It is part of a much needed process of reforming social and environmental institutions, making them more responsive to the pressures and challenges facing our society. It should not be seen as an add-on. We have already said that we are pleased the Government is investigating the development of environmental accounting, and we are very happy to help and push that initiative along.

In the area of consultation, this department has also been responsible for the development of this Government's council-style government. "Governing Canberra" seems to have sunk without a trace. Although it did receive criticism - and I acknowledge that there were some flaws in it - I thought it was a good start. I was encouraging debate and would have welcomed debate on that first document, even if the document was flawed. I think it is unfortunate that it has just disappeared.

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