Road safety is a shared responsibility, the collaborative partnership of NRSPP aims to share and recognise organisations that are helping drive the change are passionate about saving lives. One leading organisation at the forefront is the Australasian College of Road Safety who shared the following article in their recent newsletter.
The Australian Federal Parliament Senate Estimates hearings on Wednesday night (21 October 2019) included a specific focus on road safety. Questions to senior officials from the federal Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Cities and Regional Development included the following:
- The undertaking given by the Dept on 18 February 2019 at the Senate Estimate Committee meeting was to have both the Governance Review and Implementation Plan presented at the Transport Infrastructure Council meeting at its first meeting of 2019. Did that happen?
- How many recommendations from the NRSS Inquiry are underway or complete to date?
- On 18 February 2019, the Department assured the Committee that Professor Woolley and Dr John Crozier (Inquiry co-Chairs) had been met with several times regarding their report, the Governance Review, and the upcoming TIC meeting. What dates were these meetings, were they held in-person or by phone, and who were the departmental representatives at the meeting(s)?
- The Office of Road Safety – what is the structure?
- The CEO for the Office of Road Safety – when will that be announced?
- The CEO for the Office of Road Safety – Have you had industry feedback that the structure will not work given that the CEO is 4 levels down from the decision-maker within the Department? Feedback indicating that the Office of Road Safety is too far down the ladder of decision making, and is below the decision-making levels across jurisdictional agencies?
- The Governance Review – how much did it cost? It is on AusTender and was done by Ernst and Young for a cost of $540,422.10. Expert peer-reviewers for the Governance Review were paid $30,000 and $24,000 for their input. How much were Professor Jeremy Woolley and Dr John Crozier paid for their extensive work on the Inquiry to produce the Report and the 12 Recommendations that we are discussing today?
- Additional questions.
Please view the Entire Video for further details.
Background
Senate Estimates Hearings Senate estimates hearings, also known as estimates committees or simply ‘estimates’, allow senators to scrutinise (closely examine) how executive government is spending taxpayers’ money. Senators focus on how government has spent this money and on the government’s future spending plans. The hearings are called ‘estimates’ because they examine what the government estimates it will collect and spend in the financial year (1 July to 30 June).
Membership: Estimates committees consist of six senators – three from the government, two from the opposition and one minor party or Independent senator. A government senator runs the meetings of each committee.
Purpose: One of the functions of the Parliament is to scrutinise the work of the executive government. While the government is responsible for raising and spending public money, it cannot legally spend money without the approval of the Parliament. Through estimates hearings, the Parliament ensures that it knows, in detail, how the government plans to collect and spend money. On this basis, the Parliament may approve government spending across many areas.
Process: In the annual Budget speech to the Parliament in May, the Treasurer explains spending plans in each minister’s portfolio (area of responsibility) – for example, defence, education or the environment. Following this, the estimates committees scrutinise the Budget statements.
These documents have been presented by the Treasurer to the Parliament and contain details of all the main income and spending for the financial year. After the committees have scrutinised the Budget statements, committee hearings begin. Ministers and top-level officials from government departments and authorities must explain government spending and how government programs are run.
View the Entire Video from Monday evening here.