Page 2953 - Week 08 - Thursday, 25 June 2009
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what role it is going to play. I have obviously encouraged the community having a place in the future of EPIC, but the purpose of having a board and a separate community advisory council is unclear to me. It is not clear who the community advisory council will report to, what their mandate is and where their advice will go. I encourage the minister perhaps to use either the budget debate or perhaps a ministerial statement in the August sittings to offer some thoughts on the matter because I think it is a good discussion to have.
Finally, I want to comment on tourism. This is an area, to be honest, where I am still trying to work my way through some of the funding issues. Mr Smyth commented—it is an issue that does apply across a lot of portfolios—that the lack of breakdown of the budget lines is very frustrating. I noted the comment in response to the estimates committee report recommendation that more details be put in the budget paper. The government declined because it requires significant investment and resources to make these figures available.
Frankly, I think it would be a lot easier just to do it in the budget papers or an attached CD-ROM to break down some of the expenditure areas rather than having to go through it all in estimates. We probably could have worked through estimates a lot more quickly if some of this information had been available. I certainly felt at times that I was asking questions in estimates that probably were a bit boring for people because we had to drag out some of the details that potentially could be provided very easily. They are not contentious areas; it would just be really handy to have them. I encourage the government to reconsider their response to that recommendation from the estimates committee.
On tourism, aside from the fact that it is a bit hard to penetrate the single lump of money, I appreciate answers that we were given to questions on notice. I want to comment on Floriade and the strategic plan around that. I was really surprised when I read the strategic plan. I quite liked the vision of Floriade, but the lack of time lines, the lack of indicators and the lack of concrete targets were very surprising.
There was a whole bunch of environmental initiatives in there, which I welcome, but there is no real clarity on how much or by when—those kinds of measures. I used to work in the not-for-profit sector. If I had presented a strategic plan like that—and I had budgets about the same size as Floriade’s when I worked in the NGO sector—it would not have been passed by an organisation. My boss would have laughed at me and told me to go back to my desk, get on with it and produce a real plan.
I would encourage an improvement in the quality of these plans to give us better clarity and to give us a sense of whether we are making progress on a strategic plan or whether we need to reconsider the strategic plan because the aspirational statements in this strategic plan are not good enough. I think our public service is capable of a more professional output.
MR BARR (Molonglo—Minister for Education and Training, Minister for Children and Young People, Minister for Planning and Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation) (11.55): I thank Mr Smyth and Mr Rattenbury for some of the more constructive comments in relation to tourism, sport and recreation. It is my fourth
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