Options+Trail

Questions for Adrian Enright by Sam Lynchhhhhhh

Firstly can we ask what your job title is? Do belong to a sub department delegate for the DFT? Can you briefly describe your role with in your department? And could you briefly describe the role of your the department for finance and treasury? Do you enjoy your job here? Would you say you work for the people or the government? (In other words does your loyalty to the government over ride your responsibility to the people) – and if the government is your boss dosn’t that make the people your bosses boss. What qualifications did you need to get this job? How do the decisions as to the distribution of money across the state get made? Dose the public view affect this decision, or is it solely intelligence based? (in other words is what people want taken in to account or is solely what is needed.) If so does where is the line between protecting public interest and being populist? What role does the premiere play in the making of the budget?  What effect dose Natural disaster such as the bush fires have on the budget? Where did the millions of dollars spent on the recovery come from? What is the difference between a stimulus packages and buying votes? (If answer is a parliament legislation) ask is a parliament legislation a constitutional requirement? Can you briefly describe how taxes work in Australia? Do you personally think they are as fair as they can be?

Parliament House report by Celeste Raaaaaaamnac

Our first stop on the Options Trail was at Parliament House. When we entered after going through a metal detector and a bag check we had a choice to go into two rooms which had a public gallery; we decided to go into each room for 15 minutes before leaving to go to the Town Hall tour as we were running behind schedule. The first room we went into was called The Legislative Assembly, it looked very similar to Canberra's House of Representatives. The seats and carpet were green and gold outlined the roof. Two huge chandeliers bombarded the room with it's light while the vintage pattern on the roof was perfectly painted. The public gallery was to the right of the room while the rest of the room had about 20 people scattered around 80 empty seats. The seats surrounded a green table of 12 and woman sitting in the highest chair in the room known as The Speaker. All the councillors had a chance to stand up and summarise a report they had written about an issue or happening that had occurred in under 2 minutes - they all talked very fast and i don't know how The Speaker would have understood the councillors. A clock at the top of the room indicated how much time the councillors had and how how much time left until the meeting ended. Some of the issues were about things that had happened in the councillors community area and some were about problems that needed fixing in the community. When we first entered the room the time on the clock of how long the meeting had to go was 15 minutes so we stayed until the end of the meeting.

When the meeting ended we walked over to the next room - The Legislative Council. This room was smaller and had red seats and red carpet, making the room look like Canberra's The Senate. The set out was a bit different; there were nearly half as many chairs than in The Legislative Assembly and there were about 10 people in the seats surrounding a red table of 12 and a chair higher than any other chair in the room - the same as the Legislative Assembly's - The public Gallery was on the left side on the room and as we observed one side of the room was actually yelling 'LIES LIES!' to the other side of the room. The differences between the Legislative Council room and The Legislative Assembly are The Legislative Council has a woman who types down everything said in the room (while the Legislative Assembly doesn't), half of the room is against the other half and there is no Speaker but a 'President' who sits in the highest chair. The Legislative Council also had a clock at the top of the room indicating how long the meeting had been running for (meaning the time was counting up not down) and how long a speaker would be speaking for; when we were leaving the woman who was getting called a liar because she was speaking aloud her written report on land taxes had been talking for 11 minutes and was still going when we left. Some of the topics being discussed in a very aggravated way were about infrastructure, rights of specific land, farming land rights and sustainability. When we later walked past Parliament House at about 1 o'clock to go to Treasury Place we saw a huge rally going on about land rights and land taxes so i think we watched a pretty good heated discussion.

Overall, Parliament House was a very interesting place to visit and i am sure we wouldn't mind going back to watch some more heated discussions.