Page 2794 - Week 07 - Thursday, 7 June 2012
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committee which looked into this issue earlier in the term. The struggle we face in the ACT is the practical one of scale, of funding a PBO of a sufficient scale with sufficient expertise. Certainly, the comparison with the commonwealth model, which is a multimillion dollar a year operation, does create a point of reflection for us. Of course, I think it would be very nice. Certainly, the administration and procedures committee earlier in the term found that, as desirable as that would be, the cost and the scale made it very difficult. I think that is something we will have to continue to consider in the future. We have, of course, gone down the path of having a specific adviser for the estimates process. Whether we can think through and design something that would work more broadly on costings is an issue for further consideration. I think it is an attractive idea, but the practicalities of it remain the challenge.
I would simply like to conclude by thanking my fellow committee members, Mr Smyth and Mr Barr. It was an interesting discussion. I also acknowledge the support of the Secretariat, the committee staff and particularly those experts that came in externally and joined us in some discussions. It was most interesting to have a roundtable with a couple of Treasury officials and John Warhurst, the political scientist. We started off in a traditional committee way of us asking a lot of questions but then we started having the officials asking each other questions and the discussion going on. I found that a very useful process as well. I too commend the report to the Assembly.
MR BARR (Molonglo—Deputy Chief Minister, Treasurer, Minister for Economic Development and Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation) (10.18): I concur with the comments of both the chair and Mr Rattenbury in relation to this exercise. I think ultimately it has proved to be a very useful one. In the context of the Assembly considering whether to adopt this process in the future, I hope this exercise would indicate that in certain circumstances around specific pieces of legislation or specific tasks there is some merit in this process.
Certainly at times it had its challenges around what information I felt as minister I could share with officials. I think that if we are to continue this process in future Assemblies then we may need to seek some further clarification around the extent to which there are levels of committee confidentiality and otherwise. Ultimately, I think it has served a useful purpose.
I would like to thank the chair and you, Mr Speaker, for the way you approached the task. Obviously there were some areas of disagreement through the process but we did work those out effectively. I think in the end we have got a good result. As Mr Smyth indicated in his contribution, the approach from here will be for me to make some changes to the exposure draft legislation. Our aim is to circulate that as early as possible in advance of the August sitting.
I hope that everyone will agree with the changes that we make, that they are obviously consistent with the recommendations contained in the report and that that will allow the smooth passage of the legislation in the August sittings. Having said that, I too would like to thank the Secretariat for their work on the report and commend it to the Assembly.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
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