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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 7 Hansard (26 June) . . Page.. 2643 ..
MRS DUNNE
(continuing):disrupt or to impede. I do not know that Ms Tucker was there, but the clear message from the tone and the words on that day was, "You will not ask me questions about a whole category of issues,"and the fallback was because it might be about bushfires and not about the budget.
Mr Wood
: Were you there at that time?MRS DUNNE
: Yes, I was, Mr Wood. I was a member of the committee and I was there for every hour but one of the time that the committee sat. I was there. What happened there was that the minister came in and used a form of words that said, "There is a class of questions that you may ask me this afternoon that I will not answer because I do not think that this relates to the business of the Estimates Committee."The Estimates Committee was looking at the budget for the 2003-04 financial year and in that budget are tens of millions of dollars of moneys to be expended in this year and in the out years as a direct result of the fires on 18 January. The terms of reference were to examine the expenditure proposals contained in the appropriation bill and any revenue estimates proposed by the government in the 2003-04 budget and report by 17 June. There is tens of millions of dollars of expenditure in this year and in the forthcoming years and it would be reasonable that some members might want to know something without knowing the sensitivities. There are sensitivities and there are issues perhaps of sub judice, but to anticipate-
Mr Wood
: I never used the expression "sub judice", never touched it.MRS DUNNE
: No, I am not saying that you did. There may be issues; there may be sensitivities. This minister obviously was aware that there may be issues and sensitivities, and he made a pre-emptive strike, Mr Speaker. He came in and said, "Here is a class of things about which you may not ask me; I will not answer."We had a discussion about that and we went on to talk about a range of things in the Emergency Services Bureau. Issues arose about the bushfires and over and over again the minister, after he had already made a pre-emptive strike by saying, "You will not ask me these questions,"gave a form of words-Mr Wood
: I didn't say that at all. I didn't say that. I said I won't answer them.MRS DUNNE
: The minister said:...this committee needs to remember that matters of personal responsibility and what happened and when are matters for elsewhere...For this reason, I, with officers from ACT Policing and Emergency Services Bureau, won't be answering any questions relating to the details of the bushfires of January...
He said, "I won't be answering questions in a certain category of things."When it came to the situation and issues arose, he said, "I won't answer that. I won't answer that,"and then I came to ask him a question-I cannot remember what it was about-and he said, "I'll allow that question."
Mr Speaker, this minister is a man who, after all his years of experience in this place, does not actually understand how the estimates process works. As a minister, as a
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