Page 2359 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 16 June 2009
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the government here in the ACT. Of course, it is a process that requires ongoing effort and work.
It is interesting to reflect on some of the comments that have been made in this chamber today and in the press last week, particularly around the estimates process. Being a new member, this has been my first budget, and, perhaps naively, I assumed there would be a useful level of information in the budget papers. What we found, of course, is that the budget papers are fairly short on detail. So the estimates process provides an important point to try and gather some of that information.
Frankly, I find it quite surprising that I had to ask in estimates to get a breakdown of program spending. There is one line in the budget that says, for example, that this figure is the tourism spend for the entire year. There is no breakdown of where that money is going, so I had to spend a whole lot of time in estimates asking really detailed questions that, frankly, I should not have had to ask. The information should be provided. If we are trying to save paper, give us a CD-ROM. This information should be provided through the budget process, and I find it a little disingenuous of the government to complain about the number of questions we have to ask when the information provided to us is so singularly unhelpful.
There was a complete lack of detail on program spending; it was not clear from which buckets of money program spending was coming. Many of these basic questions had to be put on notice, so it is disingenuous to go out there and simply say that the Greens and the Liberals are being outrageous in asking these questions. The number of times I sat in on or watched estimates where the ministers took questions on notice that they or one of their departmental officials should have known the answers to actually raises questions about whether they are trying to avoid giving the information during the estimates process and trying to fob it off to the questions on notice process so that we will not actually get the information in the estimates hearings when we should be able to be given it on the floor.
From my own perspective, I found the number of questions that could not be answered about sustainability reporting very frustrating. There were a number of government departments that had no idea what they were doing on sustainability reporting and could not give us information. I am hopeful that, through the questioning process this year, with the spirit of good intentions, many of the departments will take note of the fact that they were unable to answer the questions this year and actually put the work in to be able to measure their own sustainability performance and be able to answer those questions next year. I can assure them that I and my colleagues in the Greens will be asking those questions next year. Frankly, if they still have to take them on notice in 12 months time it begs the question. As I said, it is unfortunate that this information was not more routinely included in budget papers or could not be answered when people came before the estimates committee.
A lot of discussion about government openness and accountability also links to the government’s attitude. This is where we come back to some of the points Mr Stanhope was just making. This government have a choice to make about the style of government they want to be and about the culture they want to instil into the public service. For example, the government could issue a directive to the public service to make a presumption that all documents should be released, but I do not believe the
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