Page 2363 - Week 07 - Thursday, 4 August 2022
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Integrity Commission, so I think we should let the JACS committee continue to do its excellent work.
MS LEE (Kurrajong—Leader of the Opposition) (11.04): This is disappointing, incredibly disappointing, but of course not surprising. It is typical of the Greens. They know how to talk the talk, but—as we know and as we have seen time and time and time and time and time again—they always fail to walk the walk. It is all good for Mr Braddock to come into this place and profess to find integrity important, but of course when it comes to the vote, when it comes to actually taking action, he once again fails, and fails badly.
The Labor-Greens government have been entrenched for 21 years and have fostered a culture of secrecy that has completely eroded the trust of the public in what we do in this place! They are government that have a massive stench about them! No wonder they are opposing my motion today, because of course they have no interest in being truly transparent, in being truly accountable, and they have no interest in strengthening what we see could be done to ensure the utmost confidence of the public in these public institutions.
We do not even have to go into detail, but let us just list a couple of examples of some of the issues that we have seen arising out of this stinking government. The Campbell Primary School procurement led to an extraordinary public statement by the Integrity Commissioner to say that he was going to be conducting an investigation into ACT government procurement across the board, because, in his words, “They are rarely a one-off and it is more likely that they are endemic.” Those were extraordinary words by the Integrity Commissioner.
I turn to CIT contracts. Almost $9 million was spent on contracts to one contractor to provide services and, to this day, no-one, including the responsible minister, has been able to tell the public what they are and how they provide value for money. This government is all about spin, as we have seen only this week in the budget, and the Greens are all about talk and always and consistently fail to deliver.
Mr Gentleman interjecting—
Integrity is too important for it to be a part-time gig. To put it in context, as Minister Gentleman continues to verbal me, the JACS committee has responsibility for these areas: the ACT Electoral Commission, the ACT Integrity Commission, the ACT Ombudsman, gaming, the Special Minister of State, the Justice and Community Safety reporting areas, emergency management and the Emergency Services Agency, policing and ACT Policing, Corrective Services, the Attorney-General—I need to take a breath here—consumer affairs, human rights, victims of crime, access to justice, restorative practices, and the Public Trustee and Guardian.
On any objective measure, this is a massive workload. Let us not forget that, in addition to that long list of subject matter material, this committee also is responsible for scrutiny of all bills that come into this place—scrutiny of all bills. We are a unicameral parliament and we know that this government takes every measure, every step, to ensure that there is a lack of transparency, a lack of accountability, a lack of probity and a lack of integrity. Today, by voting against my motion to establish a
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