Page 1984 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 15 June 1994
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The legislation provides for me, or the responsible Minister, to appoint the chair and the deputy chair of the board and the chief executive officer, in consultation with the board, guaranteeing their accountability to the people of the ACT.
Mr De Domenico: Who said that?
MRS CARNELL: Mr Berry said that in May 1993. He went on to say:
I will also appoint members of the board, who will be required to have the appropriate qualifications and experience relating to the functions of the board. ... That is accountability.
Less than a month later Mr Berry told the Assembly, once again:
This legislation ... makes it very clear that it is a requirement for the Government to ensure that people with suitable qualifications are put in place to make sure that this board is managed properly.
What does Professor Pearce say? Certainly not that. It was Mr Berry who appointed the ACTTAB board on 2 July 1993. It was the same board that the same Government sacked last weekend, and sacked without having copies of the Pearce report. The board was described by Professor Pearce as having demonstrated "astonishing naivety"; as a board oversighting an agency whose actions, according to the report again, "left much to be desired". For Mr Lamont to dismiss the board ahead of the release of this report is proof that its members did not have the necessary skills to fulfil their tasks as members. Mr Lamont admitted that by going down the track he went down.
But can we really blame the board? After all, Professor Pearce said that its members acted in good faith. They just did not have the expertise to know what they were doing. No; responsibility must be sheeted home to the Follett Government. It begged this Assembly to give it the power to choose those board members, and the reason it used to sell that concept to the Independent members of this Assembly was accountability. Do you remember what Mr Berry said in this place last June? I quote:
The relevant portfolio Minister will be the Minister responsible -
I stress the word "responsible" -
for ACTTAB operations. Directors of the board will be appointed by the Minister, and the chair and the deputy chair of the board will also be appointed by the Minister. Currently the board appoints those positions. So they will be more accountable to the Government and to this Assembly.
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