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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 10 Hansard (24 November) . . Page.. 2812 ..

Mr Stefaniak: You have no concrete, sensible suggestions, none whatsoever. I think Mr Hird is quite right.

MR BERRY: Mr Stefaniak bleats across the chamber, "You have no idea". Minister, I am not the Minister. I am quite happy to take over the levers and give a few ideas, but there is no point in you sitting there calling on other people to give you the ideas. You are the person who has the responsibility. You are the person who is accountable. You are the person who has to deliver. If you do not want to deliver, get out.

Mr Stefaniak: You have the evidence of everything we have done and you make a recommendation like that. Mr Hird is quite right.

MR BERRY: You are not doing enough. Enrolments have fallen and the college is in danger. Mr Speaker, there was also some comment about addressing the Estimates Committee terms of reference. What a lot of twaddle that was to try to distract attention from the real issues. Is Mrs Carnell trying to tell me that when she was examining these sorts of things in her period on Estimates Committee she stuck to her version of the Estimates Committee terms of reference? No, of course she did not, and neither should she have. What Mrs Carnell seems to be suggesting is that when the Estimates Committee gets the annual reports it should look at the pictures, check the arithmetic and give them back. That is just not good enough.

Mr Rugendyke: Check the arithmetic? That is dangerous.

MR BERRY: It goes a little bit further than that. You have to look at the operation of government and what the Government is doing. It goes beyond just looking at the pictures and checking the numbers. It goes to all of the issues which have been secreted away in those reports. Do not ever tell me that they have not been secreted away - little things. (Extension of time granted) Mrs Carnell made the point that the aeroplane and the Feel the Power campaign cost only a small amount, only $15,000. Yes, but it was not something that was volunteered by the department; it had to be dug out. The point that we were making in dealing with that issue was that this was sloppy management, and if it exists in one place it exists in others. The same applies in relation to the supply of information to the committee. The point was well made that there was a sloppy approach to the provision of quality information and there needed to be improvements. That is the job of the Estimates Committee. The job of the Estimates Committee is not to prop up Ministers who are not prepared to live up to their responsibilities.

Somebody said that the first recommendation in relation to this matter was about the diversion of Ministers from their portfolio responsibilities to Executive private members business. Somebody said that we have a precedent here. We have a precedent in the ACT but nowhere else in Australia. We have created some odd precedents here that you really would not hang your hat on. The point that was well made in the Estimates Committee report is that Ministers having difficulty with their own portfolio responsibilities ought not to be diverted to deal with silly things like litter Bills directed at litter under windscreen-wipers. Mr Moore did climb to his feet and say a few things about that.

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