Page 1184 - Week 04 - Thursday, 4 May 2006
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MR STEFANIAK: They are not on the committee, though.
Mr Barr: They all turn up and ask questions.
MR STEFANIAK: They all turn up and ask questions, but they are not on the committee. We might have had one occasion here—it might have been the first Assembly—where everyone who was not a minister was on the committee. I can vaguely recall that happening once. But unless you want to do that, Mr Barr, the tradition in this place has been to have a more limited number of members on the committee and—
Mr Barr: That represents the balance of the Assembly.
MR STEFANIAK: In that case maybe there should be four non-government members on it instead of two. I assume you are still keeping the crossbench. That is not representative of the non-executive of the Assembly. It is a blatant stack in favour of the government. I know we have a majority government, but in the past, even with minority governments, estimates committees have worked quite well with the government not having a majority on the committee. That has been the tradition of this place.
As a former minister who has gone through about seven estimates committee processes, it was not something that particularly fazed me. But I must say that now that you are a majority government you are trying to ensure that you have an absolute majority to control even something as simple as an estimates committee. Just what have you got to hide?
I do not think it is good government. It is indicative of a government that is perhaps running scared, that looks as if it might have something to hide. Why on earth are you not prepared to do what you did last year? Last year there were two government members, two opposition members and a crossbench member. Surely the committee report was not so bad as to scare you into trying to make sure that you could control and make an absolute sham of the estimates committee. For the government to put all its backbench on the committee and have it as a rubber stamp I think is quite shameful.
If you want to be consistent, put every single non-executive member on it or, if you want to have a semblance of fairness in this process, put maybe a couple more opposition members on it. What has this government got to hide? It is another indication, over this term at least, of a very closed government, probably the most closed since self-government came to the ACT. If anyone out there were remotely interested, they would ask the question: why do they want to have a rubber-stamp estimates committee? What have they got to hide? This is a government that appeals against its own coroner; that departs substantially from its own principles—
Mr Corbell: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.
MR STEFANIAK: Under what standing order?
Mr Corbell: Relevance, Mr Speaker. Issues to do with the bushfire coronial inquest are in no way related to this motion. I think Mr Stefaniak is drawing a long bow.
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