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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 5 Hansard (26 August) . . Page.. 1417 ..

MR WOOD (continuing):

Let us wait for a statement from the Chief Minister. She has given all sorts of reassurances here that things are all right; that they have cash; that they can carry on and there are no problems at all. "What is all the fuss about?", she says. Well, that is not the story I hear. We will see what the outcome is. Let us come back here in a few weeks or months and see what the outcome has been.

The Chief Minister said half-a-dozen times or more in her speech, "Mr Wood supports inefficiencies in this place". "Fifteen per cent administrative costs". She said I support inefficiencies. I do not remember saying that. I do not recall it. But let us have a look at some of these inefficiencies she talks about. Look at this concept of inefficiencies. In doing so I will suggest where we can make some savings to find a piddling $1.6m. Administrative costs; administrative expenses as a proportion of total expenses in the budget; Chief Minister's Department, 57.8 per cent. Well, let us cut that back to 15 per cent and there are some decent savings. The Department of Education - this is not the teaching component - 16.9 per cent. Let us cut that back and there are some savings. The Canberra Institute of Technology, 29 per cent. Let us cut that back. My gosh, the 15 per cent at the Institute of the Arts sounds pretty efficient to me. The Chief Minister should not make these sorts of statements without looking at her own budget first. She should not make them at all. The Chief Minister constantly raises smokescreens to cover the appalling decision that she took. All these smokescreens are constantly occurring.

Let us see what the outcome of this is. At the present moment they have to go back and come up with a different model. I do not have any trouble with that. Yes, they have to be accountable. I have no difficulty with that, by all means, but tell them first. Be fair about it. They are going to be accountable.

I just happened to pick up the Department of Health and Community Care purchase agreement. The Chief Minister is going to make them accountable in this sort of way. This is on the page I opened it at: "Possible Assembly questions, questions on notice, ministerial briefs" - that level of detail. That is the way they are going to be accountable. That is what is being imposed on them. The responses, the smokescreens, the feeble excuses we have had here today, are outrageous. You have a valuable resource here, a wonderful resource, and I am sorry that you cannot see it and you cannot understand just how much it puts out there in real physical terms.

Mr Humphries: Well, let us find out.

MR WOOD: Why did you not say that to them when you were Minister?

Mr Humphries: We are finding out now, Mr Wood.

MR WOOD: You did not. There is nothing on the record that says that you, as Minister, went to them and said, "We are going to do things differently, folks". There is nothing there. I think you understand the importance of the institute, Mr Humphries. There is no question about that. I think you understand the importance.

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