ACT politics column. By CRISPIN HULL The public area of the Assembly committee room was almost full on Wednesday. Just one chair was available. The Budget estimates committee had just begun its morning session.
What a delightful thing to see such general public interest in the administration of the Territory, I thought, even if it might cost me my own seat.
And what an active interest all these people were taking as committee members started to question the Chief Minister about the over- and under-spending of the Budget-line items in her department last financial year.
Alas, a second glance revealed the true picture. Bar four bemused paperless and folderless viewers, these were not members of the public. They were, in fact, members of the Chief Minister’s department.
One, two, three, four, . . . . thirty-one, thirty-two, I counted. Yes, fully 32 bureaucrats sitting behind their minister as five MLAs questioned her about spending in her department.
At some of the more arcane questions from Trevor Kaine, usually about the aged or the bottom line, Ms Follett glanced to her flanks were the two most senior bureaucrats sat. Eyes moved and closed lips moved while staying closed. The question would have to be taken on notice.
Behind in the public area, one of the Thirty Two shuffled through a folder; took out a leaf of paper; attached one of those sticky bits of yellow paper to it; and then, like a late-comer to the theatre, shuffled past turned knees to someone three or four seats down and whispered something.
The whisperee then passed the paper forward.
And so it went on.
No 24 left the room, taking her folder and wad of sticky yellow things. That left 31. But soon a new No 24 arrived, followed by a 33.
Hello, what’s this. No 13 and 16 were leaving. This was getting exciting. Would the number of bureaucrats in the room fall below 30 during the morning, I wondered. (No; Parkinson was right. It increased.)
What do they all do?
I remember seeing a documentary on television about it. Or perhaps it was one of those training films. A Minister was being told about the Secretary, three Under-Secretaries, seven Assistant Under-Secretaries and 14 Deputy Assistant Under-Secretaries in his department. The bemused Minister could only ask: Can they all type?
What does the Chief Minister’s Department do that it needs 32 people to front up to a committee to explain how it spends its money?
As the questions from the committee unfolded we slowly learned. The main function of CM’s is to ensure all the other departments do what they are supposed to do.
We learnt that CM’s provides a officer to the Department of Education to ensure the policy on anti-racist programs is carried out.
CM’s even has a committee call the “”Too-Hard-Basket” Committee.
Fair dinkum. One of the 32 told us about it.
This committee monitors the “”too-hard” programs in other departments.
We learnt of $70,000 being spent on “”developmental work” for a media-awareness program to promote non-violence. We learnt of an overrun of $30,000 for senior officers “”performance pay”. (Presumably, you get paid anyway, but if you actually perform in your job you get extra because it was totally unexpected.)
The we learnt of a program to ensure cross-border co-ordination and co-operation with NSW on domestic violence, construction and, wait for this one, “”the laundry of fish”.
It was then that, like dominoes, an unthinkable heresy welled in my mind.
Most of the CM’s department is unnecessary because it is only there to ensure the other department’s do what they are supposed to, and those departments should do that themselves.
And if in turn those departments have to be co-ordinated with what is happening in NSW, why have any of those departments? Why not let NSW do the whole thing, then there would be no co-ordination problem?
Seriously.
To date I have always been a supporter for self-government for the ACT and voted Yes in the 1977 referendum because I thought democracy was a Good Thing. And I still do.
The trouble is the debate about self-government for the ACT has always been couched with the supposition that there is an ACT. The debate was always centered around the institution or entity called “”the Australian Capital Territory”.
It could have been centered around the question of the democratic rights of the people who happen to reside within its borders. Yes; they should have democratic rights and not be ruled by a Minister in the Federal Parliament who might be responsible only to electors in a small part of Melbourne or Adelaide. How do you achieve that democracy? Not by just an ACT town council which would still leave health and education in that Federal Minister’s hands.
No; by shedding all of the ACT except the residentless Triangle and Lake and making it part of NSW. The people would get six or seven NSW seats and a few local councils like Newcastle or Wollongong.
Historically, the ACT is a creature of two things: the illogical interstate rivalry that gave us different railway gauges and fear of land speculation. Neither Sydney nor Melbourne could be capital so a new one had to be created and it had to be large enough to stop land speculation, or so the politicians of the day thought.
Well, the size of the territory was no antidote to the latter and the former is now of no moment; the capital is seen with such contempt by state politicians that no other state should complain if NSW got it.
In the days of Federal Government pride for the capital which was matched by dollars it made sense to have a large show-piece territory.
But now we have had a decade of making Canberra “”pay its own way”, both under direct rule and self-government. As a result, outside the central national area, the showpiece is over _ and we have seen a lot of evidence of that. So why continue with the historical accident of a large federal territory containing 300,000 people whose democratic aspirations could equally as well be served through the NSW Parliament at a lower cost?
But then those 32 bureaucrats would be out of a job, as would the five MLAs on the committee and the three Assembly staffers and those who clean the building and . . . and . . . me!
I told you it was unthinkable heresy.