Page 1523 - Week 05 - Thursday, 18 April 1991
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examination of the condition of those assets. They examined the management of the ACT's assets and explored some of the issues that arose in management. They looked also at the process of transferring assets, and finally they looked at the ACT's public debt and liabilities. Mr Speaker, as I said, we found it a most useful piece of work. There are two aspects that I would like to comment on in particular in regard to the Else-Mitchell committee. The first is that the report produced by Justice Else-Mitchell was produced at very little cost to the ACT. In particular, the Else-Mitchell committee used no consultants, so the major cost to them was that of the secretariat which was provided by the ACT Administration. So, for a very good piece of work, the ACT community has had to bear very little in the way of real cost.
It is also notable in Justice Else-Mitchell's work that all of the documents that they used are made available. You can go and have a look at their minutes, and all of their own source documents and so on, and they have made a point of saying that. They have conducted themselves in a very open and accountable way. I think that that approach is in stark contrast to the other major report that we have dealt with recently - the Priorities Review Board report - where the cost, largely in terms of consultants' fees, was well over $300,000 and where it was very difficult to examine any of the documents that the Priorities Review Board had used.
It is also a sad fact that Mr Kaine and his Government have had to disassociate themselves from the Priorities Review Board report, although I personally feel that that is still the agenda which his Government is following. No such disassociation has been necessary in regard to Justice Else-Mitchell's report. I would commend the work done by Justice Else-Mitchell's committee for its usefulness, its frankness and its lack of a political bias. I think it is notable for that.
Mr Speaker, in examining the work of the Else-Mitchell committee, the Public Accounts Committee first of all examined the methodology used by it, which I have referred to. We also examined the findings and the recommendations of the Else-Mitchell committee, and of course we reviewed the response which the Government had made to the Else-Mitchell report.
In brief, Mr Speaker, the Public Accounts Committee has come down with recommendations which largely relate to the implementation of the Else-Mitchell committee's report. What we have asked for in most instances is for the Government to keep us and the Assembly advised on progress in relation to the matters which the Else-Mitchell committee has raised, particularly those matters dealing with the management of assets, the recording of assets, and the process of identification and declaration of public land and the granting of executive leases. We feel that it is appropriate for the Government to continue to make available progress information on all of those matters.
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