Page 1156 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 24 March 2009
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They go to the area of how the government determined what should be in the package and how the government would determine whether or not the package had the desired effect.
If people look at paragraph 2.15 on page 10 of the report, it is noted that this is an area where the committee felt that the government could do more work. This is looking at the area of making sure that spending is focused, and that when we do spend it is on infrastructure creation. The report states:
Then focusing fresh expenditure, and re-focusing existing expenditure, towards its creation, whether it be cleaner environments, a completely new health and education system, or a more equal and open society.
These should be the outcomes that we are after when the recession is over. I think that is quite appropriate, and I am not sure we get a sense that the government is focused. The committee has made the comment that it was certainly an area it felt the government could do more work on. On page 11 the committee explores the level of research that underpins the third appropriation bill.
Again, it was concerned about the level of work that was done and the answers that were received. Ms Le Couteur pointed to the fact that a number of questions are still unanswered. These were simply questions that the committee asked: “Where did that number come from? Can we have that list? How did you determine that?” One would have thought that as the cabinet in particular was going through the options presented to them, they would have asked those questions, and the ministers and public servants appearing could have answered them quite readily.
Unfortunately, here we are with a report that has to have a chapter asking for all the unanswered questions to be answered. The report goes on then to look at the appropriation and the local initiatives package. The fact that it was rebadged from a mini-budget to a local initiatives package I think speaks volumes about the approach that this government is taking.
The committee then went on in paragraph 2.39 on page 16 to look at how the government was going to evaluate the effectiveness of this bill. The report states:
The Committee has concerns with the evaluation of the effectiveness of this Appropriation Bill.
The committee noted in paragraph 2.40:
The Committee would expect that proposals involving the spending of public funds would have clearly established means for evaluating the effectiveness and efficiency of that spending.
Unfortunately, we did not get a sense of that, Mr Speaker. Recommendation 2, I think, makes that quite clear, and I will read it:
The Committee recommends that the ACT Government ensures that future spending plans have a clear basis on how spending proposals may be evaluated.
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