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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 2 Hansard (6 March) . . Page.. 602 ..

MS DUNDAS (continuing):

ACT operates at the moment-until we have progressed further in renewable energy and sustainability.

Motion (by Mrs Dunne ) agreed to.

Public Accounts-Standing Committee

Government response to report No 4

MR QUINLAN (Treasurer, Minister for Economic Development, Business and Tourism and Minister for Sport, Racing and Gaming) (10.49): Mr Speaker, in the interests of getting the ducks in a row, I now present the following paper:

I move:

When the standing committee's report was brought down, I thanked the committee for the expeditious way they conducted their hearing and put together their report. I would just make a couple of comments.

Recommendation No 2, which asks that quarterly financial statements for the next five quarters include, as a discrete item, expenditures related to bushfires and the amounts recouped from other sources. That might not be that easy, but it will be necessary for insurance purposes-for claiming against the national disaster recovery arrangements-to keep separate costs, anyway.

The government will certainly commit, if not to showing the items as discrete items in the expenditures, to providing the information on what costs have been incurred as a direct result of the bushfires and, of course, what moneys can be recouped via the various avenues that are available to us.

Recommendation 3 is that the government bring forward a statement on the risk management strategies adopted in agencies such as the Emergency Services Bureau and the hospitals. Of course, it will be necessary for us to review our risk management strategies and to put them together in a very cohesive manner if we want to be insured beyond this financial year. Quite clearly, a major task faces the ACT in replacing the insurance cover so that it stands us in good stead.

I have a concern at the emergence of 20-20 hindsight that was so evident yesterday, as the opposition sought to tread the fine line between making politics out of the bushfire, appearing concerned and wanting to just examine things for the use of the future.

It must be frustrating for the opposition to find itself in the position, where it had been in government for seven years and this government has been in place for less than one, to have to be so careful in examining how structures and procedures were put together. I am happy to say that there is a danger for the opposition of being seen as trying to make

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