Page 841 - Week 03 - Thursday, 14 April 1994
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draft reports of Assembly committees and that this should be remedied as expeditiously as possible. It recommends, thirdly, that the Government urge all ACT Government officers who have duties associated with participating in inquiries of parliamentary committees to attend seminars on the role and operation of parliamentary committees. The last recommendation is that the Government respond to this report of the Administration and Procedures Committee before the presentation of the 1994-95 budget. Madam Speaker, I commend the report to the Assembly.
MS FOLLETT (Chief Minister and Treasurer) (12.11): Madam Speaker, in responding to the report on behalf of the Government, I wish, firstly, to reiterate my concern over the incidents that gave rise to this report. As I said to the committee, I do recognise that confidentiality is central to the effective operation of the committee process and I certainly do not condone any departure from that confidentiality. I also recognise the importance of the role of the committee process to the Assembly. I recognise as well that in participating in the committee processes all members have to have confidence in the confidentiality of those processes, as do people who may be giving evidence to committees from time to time. I repeat that I have no knowledge of the circumstances surrounding this matter. I take on faith the evidence, as reported in the committee report, that the events that have been investigated did actually occur. I have no reason to doubt that that is a true statement, and it is of great concern to me.
Madam Speaker, I would like briefly to defend my Treasury officers in this matter and to say that whatever action they took was designed to make for better service, not only to the Government but to the Assembly as well, by way of the provision of a timely response to the Estimates Committee's report. If there was an error made within Treasury, I consider it to be an error of process rather than anything more egregious. I very much appreciate the Administration and Procedures Committee's protection of those Treasury officials by way of not calling them to give evidence. I know that such an occurrence could have had an impact on the careers of public servants and I want to record the fact that the committee has not sought to jeopardise people in that way. I appreciate that very much.
I had a chance, while Mr Humphries was speaking, to review the four recommendations from the committee. I have no hesitation on behalf of the Government in accepting all four of those recommendations. In particular, the handbook on ACT Government participation in parliamentary inquiries quite clearly does need to be reviewed and updated so that there is a much clearer understanding of the role of committees and the confidentiality of draft material. I also consider that as we mature in self-government, shall I say, there is a constant need for training and for information dispersal amongst the public servants and the very many different arms of the Government Service. So, as I say, I have no hesitation in accepting all four recommendations.
MS SZUTY (12.15): I would like to comment briefly on the remarks the Chief Minister has made on the Administration and Procedures Committee report this morning. The Chief Minister said that she believed that, on face value, it was the draft report of the committee that was responded to by Treasury and not the final report, and, in fact, Madam Speaker, I did present to you evidence that demonstrated fairly categorically that that was the case. The wording of the draft report was quite different from the wording of the final report, so there was really no question that the draft report was responded to.
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