Wednesday, 27 November 2024

 Sarah CONNOLLY (Laverton) (10:57): I will not be talking about babies in my contribution, but it does give me a great deal of pleasure to rise to contribute to committee reports this morning. I rise to speak on something quite fascinating, and I would say much more interesting than having babies, and that is the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee (PAEC) report, listen up, on the 2024–25 budget estimates, which I tabled in this place last sitting week.

Budget estimates sessions are arguably one of the main predominant functions of our committee, which I know committee members all love to contribute to actively, vocally, and which we perform each and every year. As chair of that committee I had the privilege of overseeing these estimates hearings over eight wonderful long days, the second year that I have been able to do so now. Across these eight days of hearings was a real opportunity for committee members to sit down with all government ministers and their department heads and senior officials and question them basically on each of their portfolios in regard to expenditure and performance.

I would like to acknowledge and thank all of those ministers and government officials who took part in these hearings, as well as the Speaker and the President of the other place for their contributions to these hearings. It is not usually an easy process, although I do have to say that it does help having committee members actively engaged, and quite often well behaved for me, to go ahead and ask these really important questions of government ministers and senior bureaucrats in this state. As usual, it would not be a budget estimates if hearings did not get argy-bargy from time to time. It always is, and I would take great offence if the member for Gippsland South had effectively removed himself from this committee because of the argy-bargy that went on in budget estimates this year.

Much like in this place, estimates hearings are a key mechanism for government scrutiny, giving members the opportunity to ask those questions that they wish to ask on virtually every element of government policy and expenditure, not just of the ministers themselves but also really importantly of the departments as well. The report itself, for anyone who has spent time reading that report, contains 82 findings and it makes 37 recommendations which focus on improving and strengthening transparency and accountability in budget reporting as well as how the government can better collect data for evaluation on the performance of strategies and expenditure. Let us face it, if you are spending money and it is not having bang for buck, then we need to work out how we can better spend it. I am pleased to note on this fact that there was a significant decrease from last year’s report. I talked about this year having 82 findings; last year had 129 findings. This year had 37 recommendations; last year had 82 recommendations. I would say that should hopefully tell us that things are actively being addressed.

I want to acknowledge the work of my colleagues on the committee. We spent a lot of time together and long nights together working as a team as part of this public inquiry. I do want to give a special shout-out, because of his new role this week, to the member for Gippsland South. Last year the committee marked that it was his ninth year on the committee, which naturally makes this year a full decade that the member for Gippsland South has spent on PAEC. I do have to say that is an incredible achievement that all of us across the political divide should be able to acknowledge depending on where you sit – if you have sat in front of him, you can celebrate or commiserate.

I do want to acknowledge the other members of the committee, including the members for Point Cook, Yan Yean, Clarinda and Gippsland South, as well as Mr McGowan, Mr Galea, Mrs McArthur and Mr Puglielli in the other place. I do really want to give a big shout-out to the backbone of the committee, the committee secretariat and staff, who are led by the incredible Caroline Williams and Charlotte Lever, for their absolute tireless efforts not only in assisting us through these hearings but also in the preparation of the report. Writing a report like this takes a lot of time, a lot of editing. They do have to spend a lot of time with MPs who have a lot of opinions about the report. They make an extraordinary amount of edits and efforts to get to the point where I was last week of tabling the report. This report, if you have the chance to read it, is well worth reading. It may not be as exciting as babies, but I wholeheartedly commend the report to the house.