Page 2609 - Week 08 - Thursday, 24 August 2006
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We also asked that more information in the dissenting report be tabled, particularly about staff, and that has not been forthcoming. One of the government responses to a recommendation says: we will not know until the negotiation project with the unions has gone ahead and the restructures of the departments have gone ahead. We actually do not know whether we are going to achieve these savings. We do not know what the staff level is going to be. It will be some time before we can report back to the Assembly. That again says that you just cannot trust this document.
As we have shown, this document is so inaccurate in so many different areas that, if you took this as a business plan to the bank, the bank would turf you out on your ear. They would say: we cannot make sense of it. It does not add up. There are inaccuracies. There are contradictions. There are omissions. There are errors. It is up to the Chief Minister as Treasurer, which we will get to shortly, to make sure that these documents are as accurate as they can be. We all understand that things shift, but there is such a dramatic change from some sections of the budget to others that it is unacceptable that anyone would table this. The destruction of the business unit I think is a travesty. I will take up these discussions in other areas.
MR PRATT (Brindabella) (11.17): I rise to speak to this line item, both as a shadow minister and as a member of the estimates committee. I will be focusing on my experience through that process. The basis of the reforms in this year’s ACT budget was the Costello report on the functional review of the ACT budget. The consequences of many of these changes supposedly initiated by the functional review are profound. Many people employed in the ACT public service will lose their jobs and other people will have their functions moved. This will cause those people to consider either relocating or finding alternative employment.
The Stanhope government is seeking substantial savings in expenditure as a result of the structural changes. The evidence of these savings is, at this point, problematic. The impact of the 2006-07 budget is such that we are not convinced that some members of the committee have conducted a sufficiently detailed examination of the approach being adopted by the Stanhope government.
Mr Smyth and I note that the terms of reference for the committee required, inter alia, “to examine the expenditure proposals contained in the Appropriation Bill 2006-2007”. This means that the committee was supposed to examine all areas of expenditure proposed by the ACT government. If there are any areas of expenditure for which the committee has not received a satisfactory explanation, for whatever reason, the committee is entitled to recommend that the Assembly not approve relevant expenditure proposals until the government has provided a satisfactory explanation to the committee of the nature of the expenditure proposed.
Given that the functional review has had such an impact on the 2006-07 budget, it should have been willingly made available to the estimates committee by the Chief Minister. Instead we saw, both publicly in the media and in this Assembly, the minister’s arrogant refusal to release such an important document. Because the estimates committee failed to agree on a recommendation to require the government to release that particular review, I and Mr Smyth had to come with our own recommendation in our dissenting report, which I quote. It says:
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