Page 2730 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 28 June 2011
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budget. We also see with a range of issues which should be the responsibility of the Chief Minister’s directorate some fairly regular failings.
I heard Mr Smyth before the dinner break commenting on the slowness of the appointment of a replacement Auditor-General. It is an issue for governments; it has been an issue for governments in and out of season. When I was a staff member I used to scratch my head and think, “How is it that it takes so long for this information to get through to governments? Systems were put in place to improve the information.” But you have got seven years notice that you have to replace an Auditor-General. The processes of executive appointment of these positions somehow fall down and that goes right to the heart of the processes of government which are put in place by organisations like the Chief Minister’s directorate. These are cabinet appointments and the cabinet office should be overseeing these to ensure that there is never an unseemly delay, that there are never unseemly interregnums.
But we see it over and over again. We saw it with the previous Chief Minister and his failure to appoint people to the board of the University of Canberra, to the point that the board of the University of Canberra was almost inquorate for a very long time. They could not get their act together. I suppose to some extent it is unfair to say that it is the responsibility of the cabinet office. To some extent it is the responsibility of the cabinet office but it is actually about leadership. The leaders, the Chief Minister and the ministers, have to say, “Get my statutory appointments done on time, I do not want to be in a situation where there are long lapses”. We have seen the statutory appointments coming through, say, the committees that I sit on where there have been vacancies for long periods of time because government agencies cannot get it together.
It is the responsibility of the Chief Minister’s directorate first and foremost, to make sure that statutory appointments are made. But they are not being made in a timely way and the most recent example is one where you had seven years’ notice. But this government failed to do anything about it until after the Auditor-General had left office and we have now had quite a lengthy interregnum without a permanent Auditor-General. I do not think that is fair on anybody. It is certainly not fair upon the services that are provided to the people of the ACT, especially in the areas of performance audits, because the Auditor-General in particular does a great job in relation to performance audits.
So, in sum, there is a lot that needs to improve in the Chief Minister’s directorate and it will be interesting to see whether, under this new leadership, we will see the improvements that are necessary for the administration of government in the ACT.
MR HARGREAVES (Brindabella) (8.51): Mrs Dunne went to some length to criticise the capital works history of this government, so I think it is only fair that I put a rebuttal comment on the record, if I may. She talked about the Gungahlin Drive extension having a cost of $56 million. I remind the departing Mrs Dunne that the amount of money put in the budget by those opposite when in government was $32 million. It was to get us a four-lane highway between the Barton Highway and Belconnen Way. It did not take it all the way down to Glenloch interchange. So what we are talking about is the Gungahlin Drive extension delivered by the Labor Party compared with a goat track that they provided funding for.
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