Two weeks of hearings for the 2022 state budget estimates began on Tuesday,with Pitt,Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk,Treasurer Cameron Dick and Tourism Minister Stirling Hinchliffe first to be quizzed about their portfolio areas.
Within the first half-hour,long-serving Clerk of Parliament Neil Laurie said that while the 2011 overhaul,which allowed committees to scrutinise legislation,had been a “huge success”,the accountability part of their function had a “long way to go”.
“I do think that what we’d have to do is review what’s happened since 2011:what’s worked and what hasn’t worked,” Laurie said. “For example,I don’t think,in a general sense,the estimates process that we’re having is working as well as what was envisaged in 2011.”
“The system that was in place prior to 2011 may in fact be better in some respects,because things may have gotten even worse in terms of the overall estimates process — but I don’t have a magic bullet and I think it’s the subject for a review[by the committee of the legislative assembly].”
The budget scrutiny sessions follow months of intense focus on government accountability,culminating in findings from Goss-era public sector reform chief Professor Peter Coaldrake of aninternal culture beset by bullying and short-term vision,and a government trivialising committees.
A 2016 review of the committee system heard myriad suggested improvements but held back from recommending many due to significant changes only five years earlier during aBligh-government overhaul. It deemed that the best approach was to allow it to “slowly evolve and develop”.