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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 1 Hansard (15 February) . . Page.. 225 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

different ways of including the community and the skills and expertise of this parliament in the workings of government without, of course, sacrificing the very important accountability aspect of the Westminster system.

There is always going to be that discussion and debate when you talk about including all members of the parliament and of bringing in the skills and expertise of every member of this parliament, where possible, to find good-quality positions for the people of the ACT, against losing the scrutiny aspect of the Westminster system. That is, we cannot be coopted to the point where we cannot actually scrutinise the government of the day.

That is the balance, that is the dilemma, of entering into these sorts of processes. I do not think it is impossible at all, and I think that is why the Greens took the position that we were happy to work with this process and look at it. I will remind members that the Greens' position was for a standing committee that consistently looked at the financial matters of the territory. It was to be like an estimates committee, but it was a standing committee and always in place, which had that responsibility to oversee and be aware of the financial situation of the territory.

There are some issues that are of concern in this regard, too, and they are human resources issues. As members well know, there are not enough people in this place to adequately set up new standing committees. Maybe we will get more members eventually. With 21 members we could look at it again. But that is a problem.

The Greens supported working with this situation. Mr Humphries then came out with a proposal last year, which was that the committees would not be able to make recommendations other than those that maintained or improved the operating result within the portfolio area. I made it quite clear last year that that is not a sensible way of looking at decisions on expenditure. Clearly, you have to be able to look at overall expenditure. There are also the questions of revenue.

Mr Humphries said that he had responded to that by introducing the concept of the draft budget committee, which has just completed its deliberations. We have not had the opportunity to finish the debate on that aspect. I have not spoken on it. Mr Quinlan said that he thought that the process was reasonable. I will not, at this point, go into detail on my response to that process, but I am not totally enthusiastic about it, mainly because of the timeframe that we had to work in.

As I said, basically what we said in that committee was that we did not think this should be an optional process, so my amendment is doing is actually deleting subparagraph (b) of paragraph (1) of the motion, which makes consideration of the budget initiatives optional. Mr Humphries apparently has been gracious enough to give us an extension of time. Mr Kaine said that it was a week. From memory, the date was 21 March originally and it is now 23 March. Two days is not very significant.

Mr Humphries: It is from the 16th.

MS TUCKER: Mr Humphries says it is the 16th; he may be right. I do not think it is; anyway, the timeframe is still very short, which is major concern, because if you are going to be genuine in your commitment to consulting and having these processes, you have to allow enough time.

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