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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 1 Hansard (22 February) . . Page.. 175 ..

MS FOLLETT (Leader of the Opposition) (11.53), in reply: Mr Speaker, I have noted the Government's response to the Public Accounts Committee report on the Auditor-General's Report No. 3 on the Canberra Institute of Technology. I thank the Government for their response. In looking at the Auditor-General's report and the committee's own examination of that report, the one thing that struck me in a very favourable way was the degree of cooperation that appeared to exist between the CIT and the Auditor-General in the quest for greater effectiveness and efficiency in the CIT's operation. I do believe that there has been an enormous amount of goodwill and that the CIT is very much to be commended on the steps that it has taken.

I do want to put on the record yet again that the Auditor-General actually found the CIT to be a very efficient and very effective organisation. It is delivering a high-quality service to the community in a way that, overall, is extremely efficient. In particular, the Auditor-General did note that the CIT was more efficient than both the Western Australian and Tasmanian institutions and as economic as the New South Wales institution and that it was generally a very effective organisation in performing the task for which it has been set up and which is clearly valued by our community.

I do echo what Ms Tucker said. It is very important that we never lose sight of the fact that, as an educational institution, the CIT is serving the very real needs of our community. Very often, though, the educational needs that are being met by the CIT have not been met by any other institution, including our schools; and we often see that the CIT is making up deficits for people who have not been well served by other areas of our education system.

I do believe that we must always have the focus on quality in what the CIT is delivering. In the Select Committee on the Competition Policy Reform Bill we have been looking at some issues to do with the CIT, in particular the possibility of, in effect, contracting out the teaching or education work of the CIT. It is my view that if ever that were to be considered - and I sincerely hope that it is not - the quality of what we do here in Canberra should never be underestimated. There are sometimes more important issues than just the cost. The value of the service has to be considered. I echo what Ms Tucker said.

In my view, as the chair of the Public Accounts Committee, the progress that is being made by CIT on the Auditor-General's report is most satisfactory. If we can see a continuing evolution of change that does not affect either the quantity or the quality of service delivered to our community, then that would be a very good outcome. Again I would commend the CIT. I think the Auditor-General's report has been a useful exercise, but we are talking here about much more than dollars and cents and bricks and mortar. We are talking about a very valuable service that often affects people's entire lives. I think we should always keep that in mind in any debate on the CIT.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

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