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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 9 Hansard (20 August) . . Page.. 2415 ..

MR HARGREAVES (continuing):

Recommendation No 57 is one that is dear to my heart, as members of the committee would know. It talks about medical services in the Lanyon Valley. I acknowledge the work the department of health has done, but they are not doing it fast enough. It is as simple as that.

People down in the Lanyon Valley have no doctor, other than the closed surgery at Gordon. They have no medical services other than the mothercraft and childcare service down there, but at least they are looking at changes. I wish them well and just ask them to do it little quicker. (Extension of time granted.)

I wanted to make mention of Mr Humphries' comments over the past few years-that these estimates committees are at an all-time low. It seemed as though we were going to descend into the depths of despair!

Each time the estimates committee report was compiled, the high-jump bar was dropped a little bit lower, so that people did not have to jump over it-they could step over it. I was wondering if it would lie on the ground completely, under his chairmanship. However, Mr Speaker, I have to say that this is one report which I thought was compiled in a spirit of cooperation. It was considerably better in its product than I thought it would be. I pay credit to the members of the committee, and to the chair.

There are a couple of points I want to make. One of the reasons why it took so long, and why we did not get to recall per se, was that a couple of members used the process as a vehicle to obtain knowledge about how the government works, and about how each and every department works. I do not have a problem with that because it is an excellent process to discover just that, but it can go on. I caution members of future estimates committees to be a little more concise about that. You can achieve exactly the same thing and it will not take quite so long.

The two members who were doing that I thought gained an awful lot out of the process. I certainly gained a fair bit myself, because of the way in which they grazed across the prairies of bureaucracy.

Mr Pratt: What about the jungle-or desert?

MR HARGREAVES: Thank you, Mr Pratt. I will now come to the others. There was a distinct competition for airplay time between the opposition members on the committee and their shadow ministerial colleagues-to the extent that their shadow ministerial colleagues were as rare as rocking-horse teeth. We saw very little of them. I was a bit disappointed about that and I wanted to place my disappointment on the record. In previous years, shadow ministers have done just that-they have sat and quizzed, quite extensively, the minister they were opposing.

In my view, we did not see enough work done by the shadow ministry. I felt it was left very much to Mrs Dunne and the chair. To Mrs Dunne's credit, she was able to range across a series of portfolios. However, I believe she could have received a heck of a lot more support from her shadow ministry than she did receive. I was disappointed in that. I think they ought to go back, at the end of this process, and consider their contribution-consider whether, perhaps, they can step it up a pace next time.

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