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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 7 Hansard (27 June) . . Page.. 1978 ..

MR KAINE (continuing):

That is a matter of opinion. The government is entitled to its view about that. But I think that the fact that the government has decided to undertake a substantial expenditure on our roads in the next three or four years is a plus.

There are things of concern to me about the budget, but the matter of greatest concern to me is a matter that Mr Hird referred to in his dissenting report, that is, the funds proposed to be provided to the health minister for expenditure as he chooses. As he described it publicly, it has allowed him to pursue his own agenda. I do not agree with money being provided to ministers for those purposes. I do not agree that money should be provided that is unspecified as to the intent of the government in expending that money. But during the estimates process I was able, as a member of the committee, to persuade the minister to tell us exactly what he proposed to spend this year's $8 million-odd on.

I do not agree that the things that he proposes to spend it on are necessarily the best things that it can be spent on. It seem to me that there has been a bit of a scattergun approach and we are handing out approximately $8.8 million in very small packages. I wonder about the impact that $8.8 million expenditure will have this year on the overall question of the delivery of health services in this territory. I suspect very little.

The sum of $8.8 million could have been put to a very good purpose. It could have been put, for example, specifically to reduction of the waiting list for surgical operations or it could have been put to providing a few more nurses to fill the gaps that are clearly existing in our health system. You could have produced a few nurses for $8.8 million, I submit. But no, the minister has chosen to spread it around like pepper and salt, hoping that it will flavour the meals of a few people in the community and gain him a few points. I do not think it will. At least we were able to persuade the minister to tell us what he proposed to spend that money on.

By and large, I think that the Estimates Committee process has been a good one. It has served the same purposes as the estimates committees of previous years. There is no difference. When we debate the budget later in the week, I think that we will be better informed for the fact that the Estimates Committee process has been followed this year.

Mr Speaker, as a member of the committee, I have to take exception to some of the comments made by Mr Hird in his dissenting report because I do not think they are well founded. Mr Hird says that the committee made no attempt to take his views into account. Mr Speaker, that simply is not the case. Mr Hird had plenty of opportunity to express his views, but he seems to have changed his mind from previous committees and previous experience in that this year he wanted his particular view of each issue to be stated in the body of the report with his name against it.

It has not been the practice in 10 years of self-government for an individual member of a committee to have his views explicitly stated in a committee report and attributed to him. The reports of all the committees of this place have always been, if you like, anonymous. Individual members have not been named as a matter of practice in committee reports and the option has always been, if you do not agree with the majority view of the committee, to write a dissenting report. That is what Mr Hird has finally done. But I do not agree that no attempt was made by the committee to take Mr Hird's views into account, which is what he is asserting in the preamble to his dissenting report.

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