Public Accounts and Estimates Committee: Budget Estimates 2011-12

I rise to speak on part 2 of the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee report on the 2011-12 budget estimates. The Public Accounts and Estimates Committee does very important work. It carries out investigations into parliamentary matters associated with the financial management of the state. Its functions under the act include reporting to Parliament on public administration and finances within the public sector. This is particularly important because this was the coalition's first budget and matters associated with financial management of the state are absolutely imperative to ensuring that we can deliver the programs we have set out in our budget.

Members have heard on numerous occasions of significant cost blow-outs by the previous government and of a lot of waste and mismanagement over its 11 years in office. I refer to the desalination plant, which is costing Victorians over $2 million every single day. I also draw members' your attention to the economic vandalism whereby Victoria stands to lose $4.1 billion in GST revenue because of Labor. There is also the failed gambling licensing option, which was the biggest failure of the previous government and robbed us of $3 million.

The cost blow-outs experienced under the previous government make the committee's work even more vital. I would like to draw the attention of the house to chapter 2 of the report, which refers specifically to performance measures. Performance measures ensure that there is a proper tool of accountability so that programs, policies and a future direction can be delivered in a manner that does not achieve the same sorts of cost blow-outs that the previous government incurred. These outcomes are imperative.

I note from the report that only 9 per cent of the2011-12 budget performance measures could be classified as outcome based. The Auditor-General said that there is a considerable gap between Victoria and other jurisdictions when it comes to these sorts of measures.

With regard to the Victorian experience of measuring reporting against performance, the committee notes the Auditor-General's findings in his May 2010 report that only 30 per cent of the 322 departmental performance indicators reviewed across the 10 departments were both relevant and appropriate.

The committee notes, particularly when looking at the performance measures of the 2011-12 budget, that in the 9 per cent of budget performance measures that we are referring to there are significant shortfalls that this government needs to address. Areas such as health and transport represent big budget expenditures by any government, and they are areas in which there is massive infrastructure. One would hope that there would be significant performance outcomes to measure that form of infrastructure. Some of the areas that the committee particularly noted relate to the lowest proportions of outcome measures of these departments. In health there are 181 measures, but only 6 of those are outcome based, making a total of 3.3 per cent of measures that are outcome based.

In transport, of 185 measures only 8 were outcome based, or 4.3 per cent.

I look forward to seeing more of this committee's work. It is a very important committee, and it continues to do some great work. If we are going to have transparency and if we are going to have proper outcomes in the future direction of this government, we need to ensure that those outcomes are measured. I commend the work of the committee.