Page 2688 - Week 09 - Thursday, 25 August 1994
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The committee agrees, on the face of it, that these matters need to be looked at more closely by the Government, and they should be eliminated where they cannot be justified. I concede that there will be some cases where they can be justified; but this seems to be an area where the Government could set about achieving reductions in expenditure and, hopefully, through that, create a situation where the tax burden on our community is a little less and the costs of government are reduced. Mr Deputy Speaker, I commend the Public Accounts Committee's report No. 10 to the Assembly.
MS ELLIS (11.54): I concur with all of the comments made by the chair, Mr Kaine; but I would like to take this opportunity to draw the Assembly's attention to the second part of the inquiry, which was to address overtime and allowances payments. In the conclusion on page 10 of our report we say this:
The committee supports the recommendations made by the audit report. It notes that the matters identified by the audit leading to its recommendations are being addressed by the relevant agencies or that they have been rectified.
... ... ...
The committee accepts the position as outlined in the case of the Department of Urban Services, -
it was one participant in the inquiry -
but recommends that all agencies review practice with a view to paying allowances separately from salary where the mode of payment is not covered by Award provisions.
This inquiry was undertaken following the Chief Minister's request that both of these issues be looked at by the Auditor-General. He undertook an inquiry at her request and approached it in a very fair manner, as he always does. The issues were looked at thoroughly. In most cases where evidence or information was sought from the participant agencies, action had already begun as a result of recognition that there were some problems in the system. It is important to note that we say in our report that some of those instances had already been attended to or were receiving appropriate attention at the time of the publication of this report. I think, as the chair said, that the ongoing review process is a good idea. I am sure that, with that process, we will see a continuing improvement in this area of government administration.
Debate (on motion by Mr Lamont) adjourned.
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