Page 3810 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 8 November 1994
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Unfortunately and regrettably, Madam Speaker, no member of this Assembly attended either conference, although the Planning Committee's secretary, Mr Power, attended the Canberra conference and provided an update on the Planning, Development and Infrastructure Committee's activities.
I want to report to the Assembly that the national conference proved to be an extremely valuable learning experience for all delegates. The conference commenced on Sunday night with an informal dinner, hosted by our Tasmanian colleagues, which provided a splendid opportunity to meet the other parliamentarians. The following day, the Tasmanian Speaker opened the conference and noted in passing his own long service on the Tasmanian Public Works Committee. We were then taken on a tour of three facilities approved by the Tasmanian committee - a senior secondary college under construction, Elizabeth College; the newly opened, refurbished Tasmanian Police Headquarters; and the redevelopment of the Hobart Magistrates Courts. The latter two projects involved extensive heritage study and assessment, which has parallels with what is happening in the ACT at the moment.
In the afternoon, delegates met in formal session in a committee room of the Tasmanian Parliament. We shared experiences in handling public works matters, and two papers were presented - one, by Queensland, on the social obligations of public infrastructure; and the other, by the Commonwealth, on the use of project management in public works projects. Both papers gave rise to extensive discussion, especially the one on social obligations. That paper raised the question of how far a parliamentary public works committee should go in pushing government agencies to provide adequate socially desirable infrastructure such as child-care, on-site parking and access for people with disabilities. Queensland delegates cited a recent court case in which the State Government was said to have failed to provide suitable access for people with disabilities to the new $170m Convention and Exhibition Centre.
What became clear during the conference was the tremendous value gained by delegates in sharing information about the projects and processes used by the various committees to assess new capital works. The ACT participated actively in these discussions. It turns out that ours is the only parliament that has the opportunity to look at a complete year's program of proposed expenditure on capital works. This gives us good insights into some broad themes, such as how the proposed expenditure fits into the total economic activity in the Territory; the role of Treasury in the whole process; the interrelationship of Treasury, ACT Public Works and the various agencies sponsoring individual projects; and the adequacy or otherwise of the reasons being advanced for capital works projects. This sort of insight is not generally available to other public works committees.
I might mention that most public works committees can examine only projects above a certain monetary value. Also, it seems that most public works committees do not get to examine Treasury officials about the financial implications of particular projects. Further, while all committees are probably now aware of the importance of having adequate support staff available to process the paperwork and conduct research, some committees, such as the Tasmanian one, still rely on staff from the non-committee areas.
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