Page 773 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 1 May 2007
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That is a mere fraction of the total figure. Let us not rely simply on that one report which dealt with a handful of agencies. The article concludes:
Bureaucrats took trips to Britain, Sweden, Germany, South Africa, China, South Korea, Singapore and the US in 2005-06.
I am not saying all of that is without justification, but I take great exception—
Mr Hargreaves: What about your $16,000 trip to the US?
MR MULCAHY: I wrote a 389 page report, Mr Hargreaves. I have never seen one from you on that visit. I would counsel Mr Hargreaves to read the report because he might improve his knowledge of public finance and credit management and he would understand the value gleaned from that.
But what we get from this government when you ask questions is not a detailed account, which I am more than happy to provide, and have. Instead we get, “How dare you question things? How dare you ask about $3 million in outlays? It is only a small amount of money.” We heard the same line when Mr Stefaniak raised the issue of the Grassby statue. We were told, “$75,000 what is it, a small amount of money?” We are told not to worry about the busway, “We will rid of Mr Corbell. That is the quickest way to solve that problem.” And on it goes.
We have seen from the Canberra Sunday Times article of 25 February that there are many instances where ACT government departments are failing to keep adequate records to account for their spending decisions. It is not clear what, if any, purpose the spending is supposed to achieve. It is not clear whether the spending is legitimate or not and it is certainly not clear whether the spending is value for money or whether it is achieving anything of value at all.
It extends to all agencies, including Mr Hargreaves’s. When we point out some specific area of waste, whether it is money spent on rash and politically motivated litigation against the federal government or money spent on a gratuitous statue of a Labor mate, the government’s standard response is the same, “Well, that is only $75,000.” Yes, these amounts, taken on their own, are indeed small in comparison to the overall ACT budget. But they do add up. An argument over wasted expenditure on a statue is not, as the Chief Minister refers to it, petty politicking. These so-called petty amounts are more money than most Canberrans earn in an entire year.
Recently the Chief Minister was critical of the Liberal Party’s criticism of his bloated increases in rates and charges. He scoffed at our commitment to rein in government spending. I think his words were, “There are a lot of $75,000 savings to be found,” again referring to money wasted on the Grassby statue. Yes, Chief Minister, that is a lot of statues, a lot of lawyers’ bills, a lot of luxury cars for Rhodium executives and a lot of expensive lunches for bureaucrats. It is a lot of tickets for sporting events and a lot of needless entertainment bills.
The Labor government seems to believe that, as long as they do not keep proper records of their spending, there is not any waste. Perhaps they like it this way.
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