Moroney Sue: State Sector and Public Finance Reform Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMoroney Sue: State Sector and Public Finance Reform Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 02 July 2013. Volume:691;Page:11648. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]SUE MORONEY (Labour):I was very interested in the Minister for Food Safety’s contribution a short time ago on this part of the State Sector and Public Finance Reform Bill. She did say that she was going to address the questions that had been raised by the Opposition speakers but she declined to actually answer the fundamental question that I had posed earlier about seeking an absolute assurance from the Minister in the chair the Minister for the Environment that we would be able to compare estimates from year toyear by comparing apples with apples even though in this part of the bill we were changing the way that those estimates were going to be brought down. I still would like to hear an assurance from the Minister in the chair about that issue because I think that is fundamentally important.It is worrying to me and of some concern that we have members in the Chamber from the Government who are here and who sit on the Finance and Expenditure Committee but do not seem interested in taking a call in the debate around how we are amending the Public Finance Act. I really did expect that we would hear them getting up to defend these amendments and these changes but there has been nothing thus far. Hopefully that will change quite soon.The part that I want to address of the amendments in Part 2 of this bill where the Public Finance Act is being amended is the part that refers to the frequency of statements of intent from various departments coming forward. I happen to have here actually a copy of a statement of intent so that people can understand what sort of document we are talking about. This one is actually from the Accident Compensation Corporation. I happen to have it with me in the Chamber. I was just perusing it for the vote estimates that we will be looking at hopefully some time tomorrow in our select committee. Of course we are meeting outside the hours of urgency as is right and proper. They are documents that do actually inform the Government and therefore the public of what the department’s—in this case it is a corporation the Accident Compensation Corporation—priorities are for the forthcoming year. The amendment that this bill brings forward is actually to move that where there has been an annual requirement for it to just a 3-yearly requirement. I note that the select committee was concerned about that and quite rightly raised issues around moving to just a 3-yearly requirement of statements of intent and what that means for incoming Governments.I think we on this side of the Chamber have a particular interest in this because we do intend to be the next incoming Government. If statements of intent were there and were binding for 3 years then that may actually curtail the ability of an incoming Government and an incoming Minister to implement policy that they have been elected on. It might curtail their ability to actually make a quick amendment to things that they did not approve of that were in for example the Accident Compensation Corporation’s statement of intent or that of any of the other departments. So the select committee quite rightly raised that and did come to an amendment of the amendment if you like to give the Minister the right to require a statement of intent to be brought in between that 3-yearly requirement. I think that is right and proper. It might not even be a change in Government; it actually might be a change in Minister who comes forward from within the same Government. And we have seen that where Ministers have you know maybe slightly different priorities that they want to promote.