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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 6 Hansard (13 June) . . Page.. 1569 ..

MR QUINLAN (continuing):

please write them and submit them. You know the stuff that I am going to write. I am not here to flatter the government. Please write your contributions."

Ms Tucker wrote paragraphs and wrote recommendations. Mr Hargreaves wrote paragraphs, wrote amendments and wrote recommendations. Mr Rugendyke and his office had discussions with the secretary. Mr Rugendyke at one stage described some changes and some statements he would like to see in the report, relating particularly to an attitude to surpluses. I wrote them for him in the words that he wanted. He made that contribution. I think Mr Rugendyke's general attitude was: "I do not like some of the stuff you have written, but the rest of it will do."

But for two members of the committee the sum total of their contribution was zip, nothing-not a written line, not a recommendation. During the hearing the sum total of their contribution was the occasional shallow dorothy dixer. Then I read in the paper this morning, from Mrs Burke, "I just gave to the end. I tried to work as constructively as I could, but we were just railroaded."

As I pointed out initially, there was a sufficient balance of numbers on the committee for government members to contribute very significantly to this report. The one basic requirement for that is work. I certainly worked. I took transcripts home on the weekend and at night and read them. I read the budget. I went through it. I prepared questions, as did other members of the committee.

But evidence of the two government members doing any in-depth work did not carry through to the operations of the committee. In fact, I think the situation we have arrived at this morning makes a mockery of the committee process. Not for the first time have we had a process whereby government members have contributed nothing to the deliberations, nothing to the report until it was virtually completed, and then at the 11th hour, out of the blue, has come not only a dissenting report but virtually a critique of the report. That seems to me, Mr Speaker, to be a contempt of the committee process. Mrs Burke, if you want to triumph in this place, you have to first try. As I recall, Mrs Burke is into inspirational speaking.

Having said that, let me return to the report, a report of which I am very proud. The report contains a considerable amount of work on the part of most of the committee members. In case I forget at a later stage, let me congratulate the people in the Assembly secretariat, who did a tremendous job. In fact, most of what is contained in the report and most of what is contained in the draft is a reflection of what arose during the public hearings. If the balance within the report seems to be criticising the government or taking issue with the government, then that is a reflection of what happened in the public hearings. You cannot sit in a public hearing, contribute next to nothing and then say, "Fifty per cent of the report should be flattering to government but I have not written anything." This is not our proudest day in the operation of committees.

I turn to the report itself. There are a considerable number of recommendations in it. I would like to do justice to a number of them, because they are the functions of people thinking and working. They are not just a case of making politics. Let me refer back to the claim that this is a blatant political document. This is a document that scrutinises the government's budget. The government's budget is a blatant political document. That seems to be quite acceptable to those opposite. It is acceptable for the government to put

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