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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 5 Hansard (27 August) . . Page.. 1504 ..

MR WOOD (continuing):

be improved and will be better next year. We do need to make assessments from one year to the next and it has been very difficult. There have been some other years when it has been difficult as we have changed from one system to another as we have progressed. But it was certainly no easier this year to understand fully what is happening.

Then we get on to other problems. You ask the question: "What is going to happen here?", and you get as an answer: "That is outputs related; we cannot tell you", or, "We will find out later", or, "The agencies are doing that". I think someone was asking questions about jobs. We were told, "We cannot tell you how many jobs will go. We cannot even tell you whether jobs will go". Did members hear that? Of course you did. Is that not something that you would expect to be an outcome of an Estimates Committee hearing? "No, we cannot tell you; we do not know". I am sure people do know, but it was not forthcoming. I think I have a fair complaint when I say we have not been as well served in that regard from the way that the papers are presented or the answers that we are getting.

Associated with that was the response that I heard on many occasions, whether I was down there in the room or up in my office listening in. The response was: "Well, it is not in our control". "It is not for me to decide". "It is not in our control". When do we find out? Perhaps a year later in an annual report, if it is dared to be revealed. There is a lot to do to improve things and some of the recommendations in this report go in that direction. The Government, as a policy, is deliberately trying to bag this report.

There were occasions when I was embarrassed in the committee room or upstairs when there was clear and deliberate evasion. There was a refusal to give answers. There were too many of those occasions. There was one in particular when it got acutely discomforting for the people who were evasive, and awkward for the people who were asking the questions. So the process has to get a lot better. The approach from the Government and some bureaucrats has to get a lot better. I would hope that next year the Government might take some steps in that direction. If a lot of the recommendations in this report this year are implemented it will get better, but there also needs to be a change of attitude. Notwithstanding those circumstances, Mr Berry did a good job, and I congratulate him.

I want to put on the record a correction. I do not expect that the Chief Minister expected to give a little bit of information over the airwaves, but I certainly heard it. It relates to incidents when people from the Institute of the Arts came and gave evidence. I will say what happened, and everybody here will confirm what I say is correct. The gallery was packed and it was a quiet gallery. People sat listening intently to the presentation and to the questions and answers. They clapped when one of the presentations was completed and they clapped again at the end. Does anybody want to dispute that? So there was no disorderly audience on that day. It was a very polite and well-behaved audience. Let us make that clear. I say that because there was a suggestion that somehow they were disorderly and were encouraged.

Mr Corbell: Hostile.

MR WOOD: Yes, hostile. Was that the word? That is simply not the case. They were fine people doing a good job there, as elsewhere, and I want to defend their reputation.

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