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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 4 Hansard (11 April) . . Page.. 989 ..

MRS DUNNE (continuing):

At the risk of sounding like a cracked record, I have to draw to the attention to the Assembly the lack of commitment to the process by the Treasurer and this government. The committee took on the reference to undertake a review of service delivery for the 2002-03 budget on the understanding that by late February we would receive the government's document on the future of the budget. When it did arrive on 28 March-which was nearly two weeks after we had conducted our public hearings and after we had commenced the process of drafting the report-it was next to useless. The timing was entirely inappropriate and we have recommendations in our report about the timing of such a document.

It is absolutely utterly unacceptable that community groups should have such a short lead time. No matter where you go in the community, these people are volunteers. They meet once a month at best and they need at least six or eight weeks to receive the document, go away, work out what they are going to do with it, come back and approve it. You cannot expect community groups to work in any less time than that. This is the task that we as a committee set ourselves when we consult with the community and it is unreasonable that the government should set the bar any higher.

The budget consultation, and this tool is part of it, is a far cry from the open and accountable government that this Labor Party promised us before election. It goes to show that making promises is easy-keeping them is much more difficult.

I would like to thank the people from the community who contributed to the committee's consultation on service delivery for the 2002-03 budget. They did it under difficult circumstances. I would like to thank the other members of my committee and my secretary Maureen Weeks.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Public Accounts-Standing Committee

Report No 1

Debate resumed from 9 April 2002, on motion by Mr Smyth:

MR HARGREAVES (11.44): Mr Speaker, I doubt very much whether we will hear anything different on this occasion than we have for the last five reports.

MS TUCKER (11.45): I want to make a few comments about this report. I would like to respond to something Mrs Dunne said about the process. I think, to be fair, it has to be put on the record in this Assembly that there have been problems with this process. The process under the Liberal government was also problematic. The Greens worked in good faith on the notion of a draft budget, which the Liberal government was interested in pursuing. The notion of a draft budget is obviously different to just consultation on the budget-not that you cannot have both, but they are two distinct things. The Labor government has not said this is a draft budget process. It has said that this is a consultation process.

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