Page 598 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 4 July 1989
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assembly to say. There is nothing in there that you would not expect a Labor leader to say. But how much of it really is of great importance to us today is an entirely different matter, particularly, Mr Speaker, as the report in question has not been seen by anybody in this Territory yet.
So, what the Chief Minister deems it expedient to do is to take some newspaper reports about what is a very lengthy report that has taken months, indeed years, to prepare and, on the basis of that very sketchy report, put it on the table here and attempt to relate it in some way to what this Government is doing in the ACT. I think it is a very superficial exercise, and it does not have a great deal of relevance for us at this time.
To try to draw comparisons, and to say, "Well, we anticipated all of this and we set up, for example, a system of committees for this Assembly", is a sheer nonsense. Whichever government had been sitting over there would have established a series of committees, not to do with corruption or crime however but because the business of this Assembly requires that a system of committees be set up. To claim now that because of some foresight, some brilliant streak of genius, on the part of this minority Labor Government and to say, "We anticipated that this might happen and therefore we established a set of committees", is a sheer nonsense. I think that I could say that about most of the points about which the Chief Minister is now claiming some sort of clairvoyance and saying, "We made sure that all of these nasty things that happened in Queensland will not happen here by setting up all of these government super infrastructures and the like". It is a spurious claim and has nothing whatsoever to do with an attack on corruption in the ACT.
There are a couple of matters, however, Mr Speaker, to which I would like to refer specifically, based on my very superficial reading of what is in the media, and I am sure that is a very, very brief summation of the report and its recommendations. I note that in particular in connection with the committees for which the Chief Minister is now claiming so much here the report indicates that a system of committees of the parliamentary body is essential and says that committees "can investigate matters of public concern". It is interesting to note that the only standing committee of this Assembly which has terms of reference that allow it to examine matters of public concern is the one that was set up by motion of this Opposition. The other committees set up by the Government are allowed to look only at matters referred to them by this Assembly.
I think that is rather curious that the Chief Minister can now claim that these committees were set up for, and have the effect of, combating corruption and crime when the terms of reference of the committees preclude them looking at things that are "of public concern". I repeat that the only one that has that power is the one on heritage,
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