Labor Government delivers on election promise.

19/2/01
The Gallop Labor Government has honoured another one of its election promises by establishing four new standing committees of Cabinet.
The committees agreed to at today's Cabinet meeting are:

• Expenditure Review
• Economic Policy
• Social Policy
• Environment Policy
• Regional Policy
• Native Title

Premier Geoff Gallop said the Expenditure Review Committee would oversee the Budget process and would be responsible for identifying and initiating savings measures across Government as well as ensuring money was spent in the priority areas.
"This was an important election commitment given the lack of discipline in the former Government's Budget processes," Dr Gallop said.
"We are determined to cut back on the waste and inefficiency and redirect money into Labor's priorities."
Dr Gallop said the other standing committees - economic, social and environment - would develop and oversee strategies to deal with key community issues.
He said they would also be responsible for the development of targets and benchmarks as indicators of progress and would provide advice to Cabinet as required.
The responsibilities of the Social Policy Standing Committee would include crime prevention and the Environmental Policy Committee would have carriage of salinity issues.
The Regional Policy Standing Committee would be responsible for the co-ordinated development of regional policies, the evaluation of the impact of Government policies on regional communities and the coordination of regional development across all areas of Government.
Dr Gallop said the move to establish the Cabinet standing committees demonstrated Labor's commitment to a more co-ordinated approach to the delivery of good government.
He said Cabinet had also agreed that lead responsibility for Native Title issues would rest with the Deputy Premier, salinity with the Environment Minister and drugs policy with the Health Minister.
Media Contact: Kieran Murphy 9222 9429