Page 2976 - Week 10 - Thursday, 15 September 1994
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Madam Speaker, I commend this motion to the Assembly. I look forward, as always, to the Government providing all cooperation, all assistance, to the committee because the scrutiny process is one that the Government does highly value. This second round of Estimates Committee will be no different. We will certainly cooperate and try to ensure that the committee has all of the information to enable it to carry out what is a vital function for this Assembly.
MRS CARNELL (Leader of the Opposition) (11.11): Madam Speaker, the Opposition is, to say the least, interested in the motion that the Chief Minister has put forward. As the Chief Minister would know, we are very keen to go ahead with a supplementary estimates procedure. The Chief Minister made the comment that it has been split into two halves this time - the first, to look at the budget itself; and the second, to look at the annual reports. The Opposition would have believed that the obvious approach to take would have been to reconvene the old Estimates Committee; in other words, just bring it forward and convene the old Estimates Committee, as it is part of the same process.
Mr De Domenico: It is commonsense, is it not?
MRS CARNELL: It is commonsense, and it is the same sort of procedure as has been adopted in other places with the advent of early budgets. We see absolutely no reason for the change, except an attempt to stop embarrassment to the Government so close to an election.
The whole point of an estimates committee is to scrutinise the affairs of government. It is one of the bases of accountability, particularly financial accountability, along with the Public Accounts Committee, for scrutiny of government annual reports and budgets. I think it is really unfortunate that the Government wants to limit that accountability. We do not believe that the people of Canberra would share that view. We believe that allowing every non-Executive member of the Assembly an opportunity to be part of its committees is an important part of that accountability. It is also an important part of being part of the process of making sure that the finances of the Territory are appropriate.
Again, we believe that this is a straight political move, and we cannot see why the old Estimates Committee was not just reconvened. Mr Humphries will move a motion which we believe will achieve the same ends as this motion. If the Chief Minister and the Independents are unhappy about reconvening the old Estimates Committee - I will not speak on that amendment, as it has not been moved yet; I will leave that to Mr Humphries - I think we have to come right down to the basis of this. The whole point of estimates committees was to achieve or to improve accountability, to ensure that the funding of the Territory was properly scrutinised. There is absolutely no reason at all to go down this path, unless the Government really does not want that sort of scrutiny close to an election. This is a straight political motion.
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