Page 2680 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 13 August 1991
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This is a fairly mechanical motion that will allow us to present a report based largely on information provided to us by the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health and the Australian Institute of Criminology on what is commonly referred to as the heroin trial.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
Sitting suspended from 5.02 to 8.00 pm
AUDITOR-GENERAL - REPORT NO. 8 OF 1991
Ministerial Statement and Paper
MS FOLLETT (Chief Minister and Treasurer) (8.00): Mr Speaker, I seek leave to make a short statement in relation to Audit Report No. 8 from the Acting ACT Auditor-General, which was tabled in the Assembly earlier this afternoon.
Leave granted.
MS FOLLETT: I thank members for that courtesy. Mr Speaker, Audit Report No. 8 tables correspondence between me and the Acting Auditor-General in relation to his request to be appointed to the position. The most recent letter from the Acting Auditor-General, dated 30 July 1991, concluded with this sentence:
I make it clear that I am seeking a term appointment to early July 1992 and await your response.
This report No. 8 has been tabled without awaiting that response. I have in fact written to Mr O'Neill, on 12 August 1991, with my response. The Auditor-General did not await that response. To complete the record, I table my response of 12 August.
Mr Speaker, the correspondence indicates that Mr O'Neill was first appointed by Mr Kaine to act as ACT Auditor-General from 1 July 1990 to 30 June 1991. That appointment was announced by Mr Kaine on 18 June 1990. Mr Kaine said:
Mr J.S. (Jim) O'Neill, previously group director within the Australian National Audit Office, has been appointed to act in the position of ACT Auditor-General from 1 July 1990 to 30 June 1991.
This was the situation with which I was confronted when I became Chief Minister again on 6 June 1991. No public process to select a permanent Auditor-General had been initiated. I moved to correct this unsatisfactory situation in accordance with my clearly stated policy to advertise vacant agency head positions and select on merit. This policy was adopted in the recent filling of the position of Chief Executive Officer to the Board of Health and is being followed for the position of Territory
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