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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 10 Hansard (13 October) . . Page.. 3053 ..

Leave granted.

MR QUINLAN: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Thank you, members. Let me first address some of the things said during this debate. I refer to Mr Humphries' speech and Mr Smyth's speech, which was really Mr Humphries' speech anyway. Each based their speech on a massive contradiction. What they virtually said was that this would cause additional costs; on the other hand, the information to which I refer is already available. Mr Humphries claimed we have more information than anywhere else. I cannot see the concern in their particular addresses and their approaches. I can only understand that they were wishing to muddy the waters in relation to this debate.

The Government has indicated over the last year or so that it wants greater involvement of the Assembly in the budget process. In February this year we had a debate which effectively was contrived by the Government - a sort of a put-up-or-shut-up debate in relation to the preparation of the budget. And now we have the exercise about the draft budget.

I have to put on record that I am highly cynical about the motivation behind the draft budget process. I believe it is more about inhibiting comment on the actual budget by members than it is about accepting contribution to it before the event. Nevertheless, if we are to participate in that exercise, then we have not just the desire but the right to a reasonable degree of information.

The Chief Minister set out, I think deliberately, to confuse the debate by referring to annual reports which emerged some six to eight months after the budget was brought down; after we would be requiring information on progress. That was a deliberate red herring. Mr Smyth discussed it and said the information we might want would be merely extrapolation, which was useless.

I have to say Mr Smyth's contribution lacked considerable understanding of the process. I recommend that he go to some textbook and try to acquaint himself with the difference between data and information. Data is just a heap of numbers that measure some particular event, a process; whereas information is useful data. What I want is not increased data from this Government, at which they are quite adept. The data they produce is as much about trying to claim that they provide information. What I want is real information.

Referring back to Mrs Carnell's discussion on information in relation to annual reports: I would have the gravest of doubts about any Treasurer - or in this case, former Treasurer, now having ducked the job - who would rely upon the annual report published months after the end of the financial year as the sole monitor of delivery of outputs. She is asking this Assembly to rely upon the annual reports for last year that we have yet to receive, to monitor performance throughout the last financial year.

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