Page 2165 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 28 August 2007

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DR FOSKEY (Molonglo) (11.56): I will talk very briefly about this. It is an opportunity to take up where I left off in regard to the staffing issues. I am very interested to know whether the staffing upstairs in the executive offices—in ministers’ offices—has increased in the past over the period. As we get closer to an election we might see more increases.

I am absolutely sure that the workloads are extraordinary—but they are quite extraordinary downstairs as well. I would also be interested in knowing whether we have any way of knowing how many staff are allotted upstairs, how those decisions are made, and whether they come out of Assembly funding. I do not know that. I am aware that, anecdotally, more staff appear to be working in ministers’ offices.

Secondly, I endorse some of Mr Mulcahy’s statements. In estimates, which are very important venues for scrutiny of the budget—and we members of the estimates committee do that job on behalf of the community—it would be really good if ministers could drop their masks. They play politics with their answers. We could really get down to working as a team. It probably sounds naive to ask ministers to drop their politics.

Mr Mulcahy gave many examples—I could raise many but will not; I have raised them before in this place—of ministers more concerned with playing politics. They play it as government versus opposition or as though against the crossbench. It is demeaning. They put members in with various community organisations that for some reason or other at that time they do not like. It would be very helpful if the executive could play a more cooperative role in those kinds of operations.

I agree that it is not just the government—it is up to members of the opposition as well; and of course me as the one crossbencher—to try to make those committee hearings more collaborative. We should all be working for—we say we are here for this—the best outcomes for the ACT and its people. I put that first—before playing politics. We should not be using those committees to advance our own argument or our own side. I put on the record that I endorse Mr Mulcahy’s remarks.

MR STEFANIAK (Ginninderra—Leader of the Opposition) (11.59): I know this is a majority government; I know that majority governments sometimes have a great tendency to become quite arrogant. But that does not excuse the increasing tendency during the period of office of this government—this Chief Minister and his executive—to refuse to answer questions because, for example, they are not explicitly identified in the budget papers.

The whole idea of an estimates committee is to extract information. It is generally quite broad. Many questions will be asked—things that are topical at the time. The budget deals with basically everything to do with the government of the day. It sets out what the government is going to do for the next 12 months and the financial constraints within which it operates. Effectively, it is the major bill dealing with how the government will get its executive program across for that 12-month period.


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