Page 2125 - Week 10 - Thursday, 26 October 1989
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
To argue that a body responsible for administering this very important piece of legislation should be free to put in a return one or two years after the event, as has often happened in connection with bodies like this in the past, is simply unacceptable. It is an untenable position.
I simply cannot support the Minister's views, firstly, that we should allow statutory officers appointed to this board unlimited time to decide whether or not to submit a report on their activity and, secondly, that no Minister would defer presenting it to the Assembly. There could be many reasons, as Mr Moore suggests, why a Minister might neglect or fail to present the report unless there were a specific provision that he do so. I think it is a very reasonable provision. It will provide proper control over the activities of this body that is being proposed by this Assembly, and I suspect that all of the reasonable members of this Assembly will vote for this provision.
MR JENSEN (12.02): Mr Speaker, I listened with interest to the comments by the Minister and I also listened with interest to the comments by Mr Moore and Mr Kaine in relation to this matter. The Rally agrees with the sentiments expressed by Mr Kaine and Mr Moore in this area, particularly in relation to the fact that, just because the committee report has to be produced within three months, this does not mean that they cannot do any work until the end of the financial year. We all know, Mr Speaker, that good management practices require some forward planning and forward thinking and I suggest that it is quite appropriate for that three-month period to apply in this particular case.
In closing, I would also like to make one other remark in relation to the timeliness of reports. Once again, I support Mr Kaine in his concern that Ministers may hold back on providing a report, maybe because it is making some comments with which they do not agree and they may wish to delay it for some considerable time. One report, for example, that comes to mind in relation to the ACT operations is the report that was produced on leasehold within the ACT. That has never been debated and presented before the parliament.
So I would suggest that in this particular case the most important thing is regular and timely reporting. As Mr Moore said, it should be a requirement for all reports of this nature so that they come to the Assembly in a timely fashion.
MR DUBY (12.03): Mr Speaker, the Minister spoke against this amendment but, to be perfectly fair to him, he lacked his usual flair and gusto in opposing it. I think it was just put up to fly the flag. He knows perfectly well that it is a reasonable thing to expect the Minister to present a report within a reasonable amount of time. The logic of the previous speakers does not need repeating. We shall be supporting the amendment.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .