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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 13 Hansard (2 December) . . Page.. 4238 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

Recommendation 12, which looks at invasive plants, goes back to the recommendation that the committee that I chaired in, I think, the First Assembly made on invasive plants and feral animals. The fact that we still do not have a sensible solution is poor, particularly when we are just talking about limiting the spread of such plants from domestic gardens. I would be pretty keen to see whether we could get rid of privet hedges, just for what they do to my hay fever. I do not care about the other issues. That is just a personal one.

With those few words, Mr Speaker, I am proud to have been on this Estimates Committee. This is the first time we have dealt with the annual and financial reports in a review rather than in the budget process. Probably what we ought to do in the next Assembly is have a select committee on estimates and budget review. I think we should at least recognise in the name what it is that we want the committee to do. I think it has been a very successful committee and I have been pleased to be part of it.

MS REILLY (11.01): First of all, I would like to thank my colleagues on the Estimates Committee for making the estimates process such an enjoyable process. I will get to the Ministers and bureaucrats later. I also thank Ms McRae for her excellent chairing of the committee. It meant that there was less controversy than there may have been. I also thank Bill Symington and Fiona Clapin for the work that they did. I must also thank Mr Moore for his special tip on what to do about hay fever and asthma. This is something I was not aware of.

The Estimates Committee has many uses, not the least of which is to ensure openness and transparency in government, which does not always happen. Doing it in two parts this year was very interesting, because it gave opportunities for further examination that were not available last year. Looking at annual reports and the budget together put an extra workload on members and it did not give them as much time for reflection and consideration. The committee recommends that we look at how we go about dealing with the estimates process in future Assemblies. This will be important.

We do not want to get rid of the estimates process, because, as Ms McRae said, nearly every other jurisdiction has an estimates committee. The ACT is the first jurisdiction that I have lived under that has had an estimates process. I grew up in Queensland and spent considerable time in the Northern Territory. Queensland was extremely slow to take up an examination of estimates. The Northern Territory has still not had the gumption to do so. That is a sad reflection on the Government there. I think it is unfortunate for the community at large that their elected representatives do not have an opportunity to examine what the Government is up to. One is left wondering what they are hiding and why they do not want to trumpet their triumphs and show the community what they are doing.

I watched part of the estimates process in the Queensland Parliament last year. I hope that we do not go the way they have gone, with extremely tight questioning and limits on how many questions you can ask, the length of questions and the time to reply. I think that puts unnecessary restriction on what can be done. When you really need only

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