Page 1947 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 5 August 2014
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process of ACTTAB should be referred to the Auditor-General so that we can review the sale and whether or not everything was taken into account. Recommendation 62 is that we look at the transitional arrangements for employees and the industry post the sale. Recommendation 63 is that we consider options for retraining of any employees who may lose their job. We know that there is a three-month guarantee, but we will see what happens there. The government should hopefully take that on board.
Recommendation 76 goes to having one nature conservation agency, which we still do not have. Apparently, it is the only thing all three parties agree on, but the government has not been able to deliver, so recommendation 76 is very important.
We then go through a phase of a few more arts recommendations—83, 84 and 87. Recommendation 83 talks about the capital area theatre awards, and assistance for them. Recommendation 87 is that, when we are scoping for the new theatre, we might look at the possibility of establishing it as a national performing arts centre.
As I said, there are 138 recommendations. It is, I think, a very balanced report. People worked very hard to make it so, and that is a good thing. I would like to finish, again, by thanking my colleagues, Ms Berry, Ms Porter and Mrs Jones, for their efforts. I think they have all done very well, particularly as for two of them it was their first estimates committee. For Ms Porter and I, it was just another estimates committee notch on the belt. With respect to the staff, through Dr Lloyd and through you, Acting Clerk, please pass on our regards to the staff and our thanks for their efforts. The efforts were great. People took it very seriously and did a very good job.
I would like to end by thanking my staff, Emma and Merlin, for all of their support. As well as doing the standard job that you do as a member, doing estimates is a big ask and it affects the staff, so I thank you. I commend the report to the Assembly.
MRS JONES (Molonglo) (11.30): I rise to add my voice to the comments of those of the committee chair. I was honoured this year to have been appointed to serve on the Select Committee on Estimates 2014-2015, and I thank Mr Smyth for ably chairing the committee, with occasional backup when required. I thank fellow committee members, Ms Porter and Ms Berry, for their contribution to discussions and their courage in asking serious questions of their own government ministers. I also thank the ministers’ officials and community representatives who appeared throughout the public hearings and the committee secretariat for making this enormous task possible and smooth.
While estimates was ongoing, the budget was said by a local economist of good standing to be in worse shape than the ACT economy, and I believe that to be a fair assessment. The presentation of the budget is telling, with budget paper 3, the portfolio statement, cut down into a series of smaller books. We have more paper with fewer pages, a larger type font than last year and a few key missing figures. For example, the overall picture of our debt, or the UPS net operating balance, has been split between two numbers in the back of some of the BP3 booklets rather than in the easy-to-find location where it is usually in the first table in BP2.
The committee has reported with 138 recommendations reaching across from the large to the small with each being supported and asking the government to lift their
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