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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 7 Hansard (25 June) . . Page.. 2126 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

Proposed expenditure - Planning and Land Management, $26,264,000 (comprising net cost of outputs, $26,264,000)

MS McRAE (5.37): To follow my curious theme about budget papers and the meaning of life - - -

Mr Humphries: It is a curious theme, yes.

MS McRAE: Just bear with me. Budget papers are not just about adding up the numbers in columns. They are major policy statements of government. They are a pulling together of policy initiatives and they often announce new ones. As a consequence, I think it is very important that somewhere along the line with these papers we get a grasp of what the Government are trying to do, whom they are trying to do it for, and why they are doing it.

In the sport area we found out that what they were trying to do was to get more people to be active. Okay. It does not matter who; just more people to be active. It was a bit vague and I was worried about it. In the planning area we find it is almost the reverse. We get some very clear statements about what the Government are doing and, by implication, whom they are not concerned about and what they are not concerned about. My basic theme is that I think that we need the Government, the Estimates Committee, all of us, to think collectively about whether we want these budget papers to have a much clearer focus in terms of the overall policy direction of this Government, so that the Estimates Committee process can judge whether it has happened or not. I realise that the end of year reports, the annual reports, do provide us with some information. As I pointed out, in most cases there are a lot of outcomes and little measurement processes along the way that try to do that, but they do it in detail. They do not give the big picture, only part of it.

When we come to planning and land management, we did discuss this in the Estimates Committee. The discussion was very much along the lines of, "How come we are having an urban renewal plan, an urban development program, when the strategic plan is not ready?". It seems odd to have one major policy direction of government that says we are going to develop the strategic plan and then to find a department within the Government with its own little direction off in another area. It seemed to me that it is that sort of thing that highlights what I am trying to come to grips with. If we have a government that is there for the people, that is there to deliver certain things, somewhere along the line we should be able to see that. Here we do not.

When we look at the detail of Planning and Land Management, they have had a lot of changes in the last year, and it is gradually all coming together. There are, in many instances, things that are the end of a long cycle. Really, a lot of the questions that were being asked about planning and land management under the last Government, a lot of the reviews, and a lot of the developments within the department, have come to fruition.

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