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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 9 Hansard (20 August) . . Page.. 2407 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

Although it did not make a recommendation to this effect, the committee felt that the decision to add or remove performance indicators from budget documents, or other related documents, should be one for cabinet to make, so that a consistent, across-the-board, view can be determined of the relevance of types of indicators.

The committee, for example, commented on indicators such as, "So-and-so are planned to be produced. Quantity-one" and questioned whether that was a useful kind of indicator to put before the public. Nevertheless, a great many performance measures feature in the budget papers. The committee feels that there needs to be a continuing process of reviewing the usefulness of those particular indicators.

In fact, the committee recommended that the government undertake a review of performance measures, to ensure that the measures are meaningful, allow for comparison over time, are consistent with measures in ownership agreements and annual reports, and take into account-this is important-the need for triple bottom line reporting.

In other words, we want the reporting to be useful-to actually say something-to tell a story. As an aside, might I say I fully concede that the performance indicators were in no better state under the previous government. A review would be a process that I would welcome a role in-in contributing to getting meaningful indicators on the table.

The committee also took some time to examine issues relating to land development. Members will recall that the Minister for Planning indicated to the Assembly that the appropriate vehicle to examine the government's plans for socialising land development was the Estimates Committee. As a result, a great deal of time was spent on that matter. As I have suggested already, this minister was called back to the Estimates Committee on three separate occasions to continue evidence on that subject.

The committee noted that the Auditor-General had found that the resources of Treasury that were devoted to economic analysis in specific cases were insufficient. The concern, in this instance, related to the government's intention of moving towards budget surpluses being largely predicated on income from land sales.

The committee was also interested to hear that the Treasurer apparently lacks some level of knowledge about the details of revenue to be derived from land lease sales. The Treasury apparently does not have full information, at this stage-at least for the benefit of the committee-of the forces of demand and supply in the land market. There was a suggestion that further work will need to be done on that subject.

The foreshadowed new land development agency, at this stage-perhaps not surprisingly-has no business plan. Yet, despite the dearth of economic analysis, the committee has been told by the Treasurer that the price of land could fall marginally under the plan that the government is bringing forward.

In response to that, and in light of the report of the Auditor-General-report No 5 of this year-which came down contemporaneously with this report, the committee recommended that it should be standard government practice to undertake a rigorous and independent cost benefit analysis for significant projects such as the decision of the government to become the major land developer in the territory.

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