Book 8 - Parliament of Victoria

CONDOLENCES
Wednesday, 1 June 2011 COUNCIL 1597
Wednesday, 1 June 2011
The PRESIDENT (Hon. B. N. Atkinson) took the
chair at 9.34 a.m. and read the prayer.
CONDOLENCES
Lance Corporal Andrew Jones and Lieutenant
Marcus Case
The PRESIDENT — Order! Members may have
noted with a degree of sadness, as indeed I have, the
deaths of two Australian soldiers killed in action
yesterday in Afghanistan, both of them with strong
links to Victoria — indeed both were Victorian born. It
is with deep regret that I advise the house of their
deaths on 30 May, the two soldiers being Lance
Corporal Andrew Gordon Jones and Lieutenant Marcus
Sean Case. The soldiers were killed in two separate
incidents in Afghanistan.
I ask all members to stand in silence in memory of the
service and sacrifice of these two brave Australian
soldiers.
Honourable members stood in their places.
ABORIGINAL AFFAIRS TASKFORCE
Indigenous affairs report 2009–10
Hon. W. A. LOVELL (Minister for Housing), by
leave, presented report.
Laid on table.
PUBLIC ACCOUNTS AND ESTIMATES
COMMITTEE
Budget estimates 2011–12 (part 1)
Mr P. DAVIS (Eastern Victoria) presented report
including appendices, together with transcripts of
evidence.
Laid on table.
Ordered that report be printed.
Mr P. DAVIS (Eastern Victoria) — I move:
That the Council take note of the report.
In so doing I am cognisant of the current standing
orders of this place, under which I have to compress
54 hours of public hearings into 5 minutes of summary.
That is an impossible task, and I will not attempt it.
There were in fact 48 public hearings in relation to
portfolios, including public hearings to which the
President and the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly
were able to contribute in a meaningful way. Before I
proceed I should acknowledge the incredible amount of
effort made by the presiding officers, the Premier, the
Treasurer, the Deputy Premier, the Assistant Treasurer,
the Attorney-General and all the other ministers and
departmental secretaries and staff who were involved in
the public hearings. They all made a great contribution.
These public hearings are an opportunity for the
committee to examine in detail some of the aspects of
the budget that would not otherwise be accessible to the
Parliament and to the public. In the hearings questions
can be posed to ministers and comprehensive responses
provided. It is not just the responses to those questions
which are important, it is also the material that is
collated by the committee in its investigation.
This is the first of three parts to the report. Part 1 is
essentially a summary of the key points. There will be
two further parts of the report tabled at a later date.
Part 2 will look specifically at performance measures
within the budget papers, and part 3 will explore other
themes in the budget, bringing together the information
I referred to — the budget papers, the budget estimates
hearings, the department’s responses to the budget
estimates questionnaire and other research.
Those reports are an important part of the transparency
process around the budget. Many members of
Parliament look forward to receiving part 1 of the
estimates report from the Public Accounts and
Estimates Committee (PAEC) so they can use it as a
reference for their contribution to the budget debate.
The opportunity is there and has been for a little time,
because we have this year changed the format and we
are not printing transcripts of evidence. Those
transcripts are available on the PAEC website, and as a
research tool that is probably more usable.
One of the other innovations is that this year the
estimates hearings were audiocast, which provided for
some moments of interest when we found that the audio
was broadcasting a private meeting of the committee,
for example. Also as a result of that broadcast we found
that there were some problems with access to the audio
by unauthorised people, which was then broadcast in
the media. We will be working with the presiding
officers to ensure that that does not happen in the
future.