Page 2362 - Week 07 - Thursday, 4 August 2022
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should be doing right now? Unless anything can be identified, diluting the remit of JACS is not necessarily the answer.
What I would like to consider is the name of the JACS committee itself, because the remit of the committee is broader than just the JACS Directorate. It is broader than the constituents of its name, being Justice and Community Safety. It covers integrity, as the Leader of the Opposition has been saying; it covers elections, gaming, consumer affairs, and the Public Trustee and Guardian. I have not settled on what I would like to propose as a name, but it is a conversation I would like to start within the committee itself. If anyone has any contributions, I invite them to please come forward with those. Thank you.
MR GENTLEMAN (Brindabella—Manager of Government Business, Minister for Corrections, Minister for Industrial Relations and Workplace Safety, Minister for Planning and Land Management and Minister for Police and Emergency Services) (11.02): The government supports integrity, of course. The government established the Integrity Commission and has been strengthening probity and integrity. I do not agree with Ms Lee’s attacks on the Standing Committee on Justice and Community Safety. The committee does excellent work and the amendment that I have circulated supports its work. I move the amendment now:
Omit paragraphs (1)(b) to (3)(f), substitute:
“(b) Canberra’s integrity system has been continuously improved, most recently with the establishment of the ACT Integrity Commission;
(c) all jurisdictions in Australia have a parliamentary committee which provides oversight of integrity matters and, where applicable, meets all legislative requirements under that jurisdictions integrity legislation;
(d) the standing committees in other parliaments which consider integrity can, and in some instances do, have oversight responsibilities for matters in addition to integrity; and
(e) at the start of the Tenth Assembly, the Legislative Assembly committee structure for the parliamentary term was established by a tripartisan resolution of the Assembly;
(f) under the motion establishing the standing committees of the Tenth Assembly, the Legislative Assembly Standing Committee on Justice and Community Safety has responsibility for the ACT Integrity Commission and related matters; and
(2) calls on members to support the Standing Committee on Justice and Community Safety in their role oversighting integrity in the ACT and the ACT Integrity Commission.”.
Regarding JACS’s work, very similar to other jurisdictions, this committee does an excellent job, as we have heard from both the Leader of the Opposition and Mr Braddock this morning. All other jurisdictions do have integrity committees; however, they are not always standalone committees. In WA the committee covers integrity and police. The JACS committee includes integrity in its scope, as agreed by tripartisan motion at the commencement of the Tenth Assembly. I believe it was the Canberra Liberals that specifically asked for JACS to have oversight of the
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