Page 906 - Week 04 - Thursday, 3 May 2007
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The estimates process is supposed to be a wide-ranging examination of expenditure. It has also evolved into an evaluation of performance. The overall effect of estimates is to keep executive government accountable and place a great deal of information on the public record.
The Stanhope government has turned this process into a farce. If the performance of the committee was in any way effective last year, then, if I may say so humbly, it was down to the drive and the determination of the opposition to hold the government members accountable. I hail Mr Smyth’s performance particularly—the stiletto like effort to keep the committee on track.
Last year I was privileged to be part of the estimates committee. However, most of the recommendations put forward by Mr Smyth and me for inclusion in the committee’s report were voted out by the Labor members of the committee—a committee that from the start was stacked by the Chief Minister to protect the Labor Party from a committee backlash over a horror budget.
Here today, Mr Barr is moaning and whingeing about the behaviour of members and our genuine determination to play a meaningful role in this committee process. What hypocrisy. Has Mr Barr forgotten that during the preparation of the report we had the unedifying performance of Mr Gentleman standing up in the committee room—red pulsating face bloated in anger—screaming abuse at Mary Porter? He was flinging Fs around like they were going out of style. Here is Mr Barr talking about our behaviour! If we go back to the previous year, visiting members going down to the committee were very lucky to be able to raise questions. Let us go back to Karin MacDonald.
In 2005, my colleagues Mr Mulcahy and Mr Seselja, who were on that committee, were struggling—like Pratt and Smyth in 2006—to keep the committee on track. I can recall on one occasion going down and waiting 44 minutes to ask one question, three minutes before the lunch break. It is collapsing the scrum. Why did it happen? Because the government members on the committee in 2005 feared the scrutiny that the opposition wanted to apply to the government on a range of issues.
Look at Ms Karin MacDonald’s performance last year. Mr Barr, you were talking about performance, behaviour and standards. What about her departure at a time when the committee needed to be writing reports and sitting again to review miscellaneous issues? Her absconding broke down that process. Of course, her performance last year was echoing her lousy, rotten performance in 2005. The Labor government’s attempt to stack the estimates committee was a dismal failure for them and a bit of a win for the community, regardless.
Yesterday we talked about Mr Stanhope’s statements. We talked about his pronouncements to the Labor conference in 2001 about open, accountable and honest government. These principles do not really apply when it comes to the estimates committee. We had the Stanhope government turning over the convention—the tradition that oppositions chair committees. Why would you do that? You do not need to be a rocket scientist to work out that Mr Stanhope’s motive was so that they could control the flow of information, control the writing of the reports and collapse the scrum whenever members of the opposition were getting a little too close to the bone.
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