Page 1791 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 8 June 2022
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investigating here. Again, it has been put that this does not pass the pub test. I think that, on the face of it, most people are scratching their heads and wondering about both the quantum and the detail of these contracts.
There are issues that raise concern, but there is no conclusion yet to those questions. Therefore, this no-confidence motion is getting ahead of itself. The issue needs to be properly investigated by an appropriate body, with due process. It may indeed be that there are problems in this procurement process, but let us find that out. Let us use the mechanisms that this place has established over a number of years. We have a range of them. We have the tools to answer these questions. We have the Auditor-General, Assembly committee inquiries, and we now have an Integrity Commissioner, if that is the point we need to go to. These are the sorts of processes that this place has set up to make sure that these kinds of questions can be answered.
We Greens have supported, and often driven, a range of those mechanisms. This is exactly why we have them. Our community expect us to interrogate these issues, but they do not expect us to jump to conclusions without the information available to us. We have a serious job here. We are not here to get headlines. We are here to actually govern this territory—that is, all of us in this place—and to do that in a way that is considered, thoughtful and based on the evidence. We should not conclude, alone in this Assembly, in this political environment, without the complete picture, what the actual story is. There has been a lot of outrage, but we want to see the independent bodies who are charged with these jobs do their work and then this Assembly can form its view on whether further action needs to be taken.
We expect CIT to use taxpayers’ money properly. We expect them to be focused on delivering good training for the residents of this city, for whom CIT is a really important institution. It is why we have always backed it strongly, because we need people being trained in the sorts of skills that CIT is delivering, from those traditional areas of plumbing and hairdressing and hospitality through to the more modern applications. I am very pleased to see them launching programs around electric vehicle maintenance, and the globally leading renewable energy training that they are offering. This is what we expect to see from CIT, to make sure that this city remains at the cutting edge and delivers the services we need.
I think anybody who has heard the confusing and jargon-filled language that has been used to describe the contracts so far is wondering what that money is being spent on. There is no doubt about that. For $8 million worth of work, I am very keen to see the actual advice, to have an understanding of the work that was provided to the CIT and how this was utilised for public benefit—whether it represents value for money and whether it has improved the institution. These are the sorts of questions that I think everybody in this place, and anybody who has read the paper or heard the radio in the last 24 hours or so, is also wondering.
I have touched on it already, but technically it is not a breach, although it is of course coincidental and somewhat alarming, that the latest contract was priced just under that threshold at which it would have needed to go before the Government Procurement Board. I think this invites further investigation.
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