Page 3680 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 26 August 2009
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Mr Coe: When was that quote?
MR SMYTH: That was exactly three months ago today, 26 May 2009—the estimates committee in this Assembly in the inquiry into the government’s 2009-10 budget. The Chief Minister, the Minister for TAMS, said there were no savings, it was not part of the report and it does not deliver. Well, it was part of the inquiry, it does name those savings, and it delivers $10 million worth of savings. So there is another one for the Chief Minister and his sense of honesty, openness and accountability to this Assembly.
Mr Stanhope: It says no such thing.
MR SMYTH: It says no such thing?
Mr Stanhope: It delivers no such thing.
MR SMYTH: “It delivers no such thing,” the Chief Minister says. He is in denial. It is just pure denial. I will go back. Page 87, chapter 13: “Identify possible cost savings”. How can you deny that? “It does no such thing,” the Chief Minister says. The man is a joke. Mr Speaker, the man is a joke. Andrew Barr, would you please come down here and read this chapter to the Chief Minister, because it is clear why he had to give up the Treasury portfolio.
Mr Speaker, here in the document that was commissioned by Mike Zissler—and there is another issue. The Chief Minister, in estimates and indeed in questioning last year, was saying, “No, it is a cabinet document.” In essence he was saying, “It is a cabinet document.”
Mr Stanhope: It is a cabinet document.
MR SMYTH: It clearly says that it was commissioned by Mike Zissler for the department. It is a departmental document. He hid behind it. He told us that it did not deliver any savings. He told us that it was only about structure. He told estimates that it did not find any savings whatsoever, and yet the $10.1 million of savings that they were tasked to find has been delivered by Ernst & Young.
He just sits there and says, “No, it doesn’t. It doesn’t.” I am not sure what alternative parallel universe the Chief Minister lives in, but if he cannot find page 87, turn over the page to page 89 and then turn over the page to page 91 and find the $10.1 million worth of savings, he is a very poor excuse for a minister.
Mr Speaker, this is a reasonable motion, and I commend Mr Coe for bringing it on. The motion says that we had a strategic budget review; it is kind of hard to disagree with that. It says that it was tabled on 20 August—kind of hard to deal with that. It says:
… gives a scathing assessment of the department and reveals a lack of financial transparency, a lack of leadership and strategic direction, and a failure to make promised administrative savings.
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