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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 5 Hansard (27 August) . . Page.. 1503 ..

MR WOOD (continuing):

I can remember Mr Cornwell, Mr De Domenico, Mrs Carnell and Mr Humphries all approaching the estimates in exactly the same way as we did this time. I do not know whether the Chief Minister and others have forgotten. Or is it more likely that this is just a political attack on the outcome of the Estimates Committee report because they do not like it?

I can remember the time when the then Opposition leader, Mrs Carnell, gazumped Helen Szuty who was chairman of the committee. The day that Ms Szuty was going to go out and present the report publicly, Mrs Carnell got in some hours beforehand. So I do not want to hear pious statements from that side of the house about how the committee system should work. They just do not hold up.

In fact, I was saying during the process, after the process, and well before today that I thought the best chair I have seen in those nine years was Wayne Berry. I thought he managed it very well. He gave everybody a chance to ask their questions, without getting impatient and trying to cut them off, while still keeping it moving. I thought he did a very good job in the chair. He got information out in the best possible way, although he did not get all that was required, and I was very impressed with the depth of his knowledge in a lot of that technical, detailed questioning about figures that the Chief Minister said never occurred. I was very impressed with that. The upshot is that this is as good a report, if not a better report, as any we have seen in the nine years of self-government. So I would commend Mr Berry for the quality of his work and the quality of the report.

That praise goes also to Mr Osborne, Mr Rugendyke, Mr Hird and Mr Corbell, who were on the committee. Anybody who wants to say that this was a poor process or a farce is simply talking nonsense. I congratulate Mr Berry, and I congratulate you all for what was, I think, a very good process and a very good outcome.

Ms Carnell: Hopeless.

MR WOOD: Now I want to express some gripes.

Mr Stanhope: The Chief Minister just called you hopeless, Mr Rugendyke. I think that should be withdrawn, Chief Minister.

Ms Carnell: Sorry. I did not call Mr Rugendyke - - -

Mr Stanhope: You said it was hopeless. You are hopeless, are you?

MR TEMPORARY DEPUTY SPEAKER: I did not hear. Order! The Leader of the Opposition will come to order.

MR WOOD: I have been one of those who have stood up over the years and said, "We are going to accrual accounting. That is great. Yes, we will know more about it. It will enable more comprehensive and better reporting". I start to wonder sometimes whether that is the case. I have found it more difficult this year to find out exactly what is happening with those figures than I have in any other of the years, even when I was a raw beginner in this place. I have found it more difficult. There was no comparative data this year, and we heard reasons for that, or inadequate comparative data, and maybe that will

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