Page 2105 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 22 June 2010
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questions that I did not get to ask. But that is what happens with the estimates process. Both committee members and other MLAs should get the chance to ask questions. For that to occur, not everyone gets to ask each and every question they want to ask. We had to put all of our homelessness questions on notice. As I understand it, that is usually accepted by all members in this place; I know that was the case in last year’s estimates committee hearings.
In relation to questions on notice, I have to say that, while it does pain me somewhat to say this, I have some sympathy with the Chief Minister saying that some questions go beyond that which is manageable for the public service within the time frame given to them. For example, question on notice 98 asked the Minister for Health what specialist skills are required for each staff member for each and every program or initiative run by ACT Health under each and every output. This type of question was also asked of almost every other department. Effectively, the Liberal Party is asking for every single public servant’s job description. Whether the public service could pull out every job description is questionable at best.
There are also questions to which answers are available in annual reports—such as how many staff are appointed at each level in a department.
Then there is a question that publicly asks, through the publicly available question on notice process, what is in the “security in confidence” standing operating procedure regarding the AMC that cannot be made public. That was question on notice No 541 from Mr Hanson. Just so that Mr Hanson knows, as any corrections spokesperson should know, let me say that, as a corrections spokesperson, he can ask for that information. All he has to do is ask the minister’s office for a confidential copy of the document, and they have to provide it to him. No-one is preventing him from questioning the minister; he just needs to have the mind to manage the question in a sensitive manner.
The winning question must go to Mr Coe for asking on notice how many roundabouts the government owns. There is, no doubt, a public servant somewhere who badly wants four hours of their life back and wants to never look at a road map of Canberra again.
The dissenting report states on a number of occasions that it was required because the committee report was sanitised, because it was lacking in substance, because the recommendations were not detailed enough et cetera. The dissenting report—to make just one point—makes a great deal about being a lengthy report. I would like to note that it is lengthy, at 139 pages—as is the committee’s report, at 129 pages.
Some of the dissenting report recommendations are good, I will note, particularly those which are the same as or similar to the ones in the committee report. I will not read them all out, but I mention recommendations 6, 8, 9, 14, 26, 32, 40, 57, 71 and 115 from the dissenting report.
The committee report that Ms Hunter mentioned lists every issue raised in the committee process—issues raised by Liberal, Labor and Greens members. All members’ issues are mentioned.
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