Page 2353 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 29 August 2007
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This document that I and the estimates committee have been referred to as being so authoritative says that we need a framework. Four years later, when people ask where the evidence is of that framework in the budget, to be told “it is there; you just cannot see it” is really condescending in the least. I have never, ever in any of the briefings I have had with Treasury—and I have had a number on this—been given any indication that this issue of triple bottom line reporting is taken seriously, nor do I have any evidence that there are any officers in Treasury who are skilled in this area. I could well be wrong. What I am saying is that I do not have any evidence. I am not saying they are not there—they could be there—but I do not think they are working on triple bottom line frameworks for the budget.
Mr Mulcahy: Maybe they are triple bottom line sceptics, Dr Foskey.
DR FOSKEY: Maybe. It is worth going back to last year when we discussed the budget. It is just ridiculous that the same things have to be discussed over and over again. Last year when the estimates committee asked about the progress towards a triple bottom line reporting model—we were not treated quite as summarily last year, by the way—we were told that establishing an effective evaluation framework is an important ongoing project of Treasury with indicators being developed and refined for use by agencies and to assist the decision-making process within budget.
I had to stand on my head this year to try and work out what Treasury actually said, what the official actually meant when he told me why I could not find the framework for triple bottom line reporting. I had to try and work out for quite a while what the words I was told last year meant. All we could conclude was that they were cleverly designed to look impressive, but all they really meant was manana—maybe.
I just wanted to say that because I do not know if the government means it when it says it thinks it is ahead on everything. We heard that this morning in regard to the no waste by 2010 strategy—we are leading the field, apparently. We might have been back in 1996, when we introduced that, but 11 years have passed now. In relation to triple bottom line reporting, I hate to tell you, but there are heaps of other states that are way ahead of us. Instead of just saying, “Everything is fine; we have got it in hand; you just don’t understand, because you can’t see it and because you’re not an accountant or whatever”—I don’t know what—the government should just say, “We haven’t really got it right yet.” That is what it says in here. This document says: “We don’t know yet; we need to work it out.” That has been forgotten.
While I understand that the performance measures have been part of the budget for a number of years, what we are still not seeing, however, is the interrelation between these measures and the relevant funds. It is great that we now have both the numbers and the strategic indicators on the one page, so to speak, so now it should be an easy step for the government to take for it to show how an increase in spending here relates to an improved outcome there. Toddler steps will be coming soon, I hope.
It has been disappointing to see and to hear that, despite so much rhetoric, the government still does not understand some of the key concepts behind sustainability reporting—for example, that an increase in community mental health spending may look like a net loss but should bring down expenses in hospitalisation and show up in performance indicators as a reduction of admitted patient separations.
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