Page 1887 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 14 June 1994
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ESTABLISHMENT OF AN A.C.T. PUBLIC SERVICE -
SELECT COMMITTEE
Report
MR KAINE (3.44): Madam Speaker, pursuant to order, I present the report of the Select Committee on the Establishment of an ACT Public Service, including the Public Interest Disclosure Bill 1994, together with copies of extracts from the minutes of proceedings. I move:
That the report be noted and that the recommendations be adopted.
Madam Speaker, I suspect that this is a report the Government will not be comfortable with. I say that because, amongst other things, the report deals with the two Government Bills that are before the Assembly as well as the private members Bill put forward by Mrs Carnell in connection with whistleblowers, and the Chief Minister has said publicly that her Bills are not open to change. When you read the report you will discover that it recommends considerable change. The committee was established a year and a half ago. At that time Mr De Domenico was the chairman and the terms of reference were quite wide ranging. They simply dealt with the establishment of an ACT public service. It was only in April that the Government's legislation that would put this public service into effect was tabled in this Assembly and was subsequently referred to the committee.
Let me say at the outset that this setting up of a separate public service is a matter of great importance. It is only through the setting up of our own public service that we can control how it operates, what it does, what its organisation should be, what its terms of reference are. In connection with the legislation, the committee did not have the time, after it was tabled in this house, to go through a clause by clause review of that legislation. There was no detailed review of that legislation at all. There was a feeling that there was a certain indecent haste on the part of the Government, which took nearly three years to develop the legislation; yet it expected the Assembly, and particularly this committee, to review that legislation in virtually a matter of days.
Ms Follett: Eight weeks?
MR KAINE: It was not referred to the committee formally until long after a period of eight weeks, Chief Minister, if you check your dates. The Government took nearly three years to develop this legislation, which slipped its target date by a whole year because the Government could not cope; yet even in eight weeks it expects this Assembly not only to consider that detailed legislation but to rubber-stamp it - because the Chief Minister says, "This legislation is not susceptible to change". It is interesting because, having said that, only this morning I received from the Chief Minister 109 amendments that she now seeks to make to her own immutable legislation. This is legislation that nobody but the Chief Minister can change. That is unacceptable.
The committee was unable in the time available to it to do a clause by clause, detailed examination of the legislation. What it did do was to hold public hearings to hear what other people had to say about it. Out of those public hearings there emerged a number of issues. They are major issues which I believe the Government has to consider before it
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