Page 2520 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 23 August 1994
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I am sure that Mr Berry will contribute to this debate at some point and I will be very interested to hear whether Mr Berry has any difficulties with the committee's report other than the abovementioned sections of the report to which the recommendations refer. I certainly am not aware of any others. Members of the Assembly will note that no additional comments and no dissenting report to the committee report have been provided by Mr Berry, even though he had the opportunity to provide such comments prior to the publication of the report.
Mr Berry: But he did oppose the report.
MS SZUTY: Yes; that is noted. In his letter to the editor published in the Canberra Times on Sunday, 21 August, Mr Berry stated:
... your readers would benefit from the knowledge that the Estimates Committee is dominated by the Liberal Party and it is no surprise that the Committee's report reflects this.
In fact, following the resignation of Mr Westende from the Assembly, the committee comprised 10 members: Five from the Liberal Party, three from the Labor Party and Mr Moore and me. I can perhaps understand that Mr Berry would consider the Liberal Party to have a certain perspective in relation to the report; but certainly Mr Moore and I have not. It really does surprise me that Mr Berry does not seem to have come to terms with "the numbers" on the committee as they were, especially at the time of the final consideration of the report by the committee. I do not need to say anything further about Mr Berry's position. I am sure that he can, and will, speak for himself during this debate. I will also be interested to see whether Ms Ellis and Mrs Grassby share any of Mr Berry's views in relation to the report.
Madam Speaker, I believe that, as in previous years, the committee has attempted to be fair in its assessment of the issues, and constructive criticism has been offered by the committee in its report where it is believed that Government performance can be improved. Committee members worked very hard in framing the nine general and 48 specific issues which the committee commented on in the report. Great care was taken to ensure that each section presented gave a balanced perspective in relation to each issue. Of course, I have yet to see whether the Government has accepted the recommendations made in the committee's report, which would offer some confirmation as to whether the recommendations made were fair and reasonable in the Government's view. At the conclusion of my speech I will return briefly to the perception of the role of the Estimates Committee.
I will not have time today to address each of the 57 issues raised in the report or all of the 37 recommendations. I am sure that during the course of the debate most, or all, of them will be referred to by other speakers. However, I would like to comment on a number of issues. It is worth noting that the committee considered the scrutiny of the Government's new capital works program in its entirety without the benefit of an earlier scrutiny process of a draft capital works program by the Assembly's Planning, Development and Infrastructure Committee. The Estimates Committee has recommended that the previous process be reinstated, which will enable more effective scrutiny of the Government's new capital works program in the future. In the report the committee notes the difficulty that
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