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The LNP promised to change how government is scrutinised. Has it?
By Matt Dennien
For more than 40 hours this week, Queensland government ministers and bureaucrats faced questions from the Labor opposition and crossbench in the annual show of scrutiny.
The budget estimates process is one of the staples of the parliamentary year, and so has been keenly anticipated given the context this year: a new government for the first time since 2014.
Having sat though (almost) every one of those hours, here are some key takeaways from the first week. Yes, there is still another to come.
The estimates, and broader parliamentary committee process, is an issue often raised by those on the non-government benches – but less frequently acted on by the governments who control the parliament in majority.Credit: Matt Dennien
Don’t knock the process (any more?)
The LNP came to government promising reform after years of railing against an estimates process previously described by Premier David Crisafulli himself as “broken”, a “farce”, and “a protection racket for underperforming ministers by partisan chairs”.
Crisafulli had called for a review, more questions for non-government MPs and a move to non-government MPs chairing the proceedings.
So, what’s changed this year? Essentially, only one thing: the chairing, usually undertaken by the heads of the relevant committees, is instead being done by Speaker Pat Weir and deputy Jon Krause.
That has led to one particular quirk for those on the non-government side now wanting to make their own criticisms of a process they presided over for a decade.
Opposition Leader Steven Miles, after issuing a media release on Monday calling out the lack of change to the process, accused Crisafulli of having “rigged” and “fixed” the system, has now been referred to the ethics committee.
“I will not tolerate imputations against the Speaker or Deputy Speaker when discharging the role of Speaker, whether in the House or in the estimates process,” Weir said.
But never fear, Weir – responding to questions about the lack of change the day prior – noted it was just the first estimates process of a four-year term.
In a statement, Maiwar Greens MP Michael Berkman said Weir and Krause “have done a far better job in chairing the hearings [but] it’s absolutely not enough to make estimates serve its purpose”.
‘The previous Palaszczuk-Miles government’
They were only five words. But, given their source, and the history of their use, they raised eyebrows in government and beyond.
Uttering the words was State Development director-general John Sosso, a veteran public servant again serving under Deputy Premier Jarrod Bleijie as he did in the Newman years.
The phrase took on a derogatory sheen after the Labor leadership handover late in the former government’s last term – wielded so much Speaker Curtis Pitt began to crackdown on its use.
But there it was on Wednesday, in the context of Labor’s battery strategy. Several sources remarked on the unusual nature of its use by a public servant.
“It was baffling … I thought with the cloud hanging over his selection to oversee the redrawing of [electoral] boundaries he’d have attempted to present as far more impartial,” one Labor source said, referring to Sosso’s April appointment to the Queensland Redistribution Commission.