Page 3919 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 29 October 2013
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The review found that overall the act was very successful during the 2012 ACT election and that the act’s continuation is seen as a permanent part of the political landscape for future ACT elections. Very important to the government is that the review found that the intended benefits and outcomes of the act for a transparent, non-partisan and objective costing process did occur. The review highlighted that the integrity of the public service was maintained, and political parties and public servants clearly understood their roles and responsibilities, thus confirming our view.
Also pleasing was that all political parties considered that they and other political parties had complied with the intent and requirements of the act. The high level of satisfaction with the act during the 2012 election was attributed by the review to the initial policy formulation providing a broad sense of ownership, sound project management of the costing process by Treasury and effective working relationships between Treasury and political parties.
I am also presenting today the government response to the review of the Election Commitments Costing Act 2012 and supporting guidelines. The review included five possible improvements, related in the main to process issues. They are not recommendations by the reviewers but in part reflect instead suggestions made to the reviewers during interviews. I will not take up the Assembly’s time now by working through the government’s response to each of the suggestions. These are separately discussed in the document I have tabled today.
The government has generally accepted the majority of the suggestions included in the report. In our response the government has agreed to one suggestion, agreed in part to one, in principle to one, noted one, and not agreed to one. One suggestion related to maintaining and issuing a running tally for each major party during an election. The government has taken the time to assess what is being asked and has decided not to agree with this suggestion. Election commitment costings are voluntary and hence any tally may not be complete. Further, the publication of tallies would diminish Treasury’s perceived independence in the costing process.
Another suggestion was to allow costing requests to be submitted for election commitments that have not yet been publicly announced, under certain circumstances. The government has noted this suggestion as it has concerns that this suggestion could result in parties submitting a large number of costing requests which are subsequently withdrawn. The reasons for the departure from the suggestions are detailed in the individual responses.
In closing, the report from ANZSOG on the review of the Election Commitments Costing Act 2012 and supporting guidelines found the act to be very successful and did not raise any significant issues with either the act or the guidelines. This was a very pleasing report card on a significant government reform initiative.
I commend the review of the Election Commitments Costing Act 2012 and supporting guidelines and the government response to the review to the Assembly.
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