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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 4 Hansard (18 April) . . Page.. 1060 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

It seems to me that the Minister needs the opportunity to rethink these issues, particularly in light of the debate today in the Assembly. No doubt, in speaking to this motion, members may wish to draw attention to particular facets of the Government's response to the Public Accounts Committee report and identify specifically what it is that they feel the Minister should respond to. I believe that I have already done that when I was granted leave earlier to speak about this report.

We did have an unusual circumstance where members asked the Minister to table this response following the Assembly time being taken up, as I recall, by a censure motion, or a no-confidence motion, or something; and, in response to that, Mr Stefaniak, I think rightly, provided us with a copy of the response during the adjournment debate. The only disadvantage was that we did not have the opportunity that we normally have where such a response carries with it the motion that the report be noted. I sought and was granted leave to speak to the response. Other members, other than Ms Follett who had the opportunity to speak in closing the debate on the original report, have not had that opportunity.

What has come through, then, is complete dissatisfaction with this report. Ms Tucker, in her response to the Public Accounts Committee report, had the opportunity also to take into account the Government's response. She expressed very similar concerns to those expressed by me and Ms Follett about issues of social justice - genuine issues which affect our schools and each of our children and which we believe the Minister has not responded to effectively. There is a series of ways that we could handle this. One, we could just accept it. Two, we could say, "The Minister is so incompetent in his response that we believe that he should go"; or we could take a more reasonable, I think, and probably a very reasonable approach and say, "Minister, we really think this was totally inadequate;" - as we do - "have another try". I would expect that, in responding, the Minister would be able to come back with a much better effort.

I have chosen the date 20 June because it is roughly the beginning of the two-week sitting period in a couple of months' time. It gives the Minister a couple of months to respond, but it will also mean that the Assembly should be able to have time to look at that issue and deal with it, should we so desire, in the late stages of the June sittings. It seems to me that this approach is particularly reasonable and much more reasonable than the Government's response to the report of the Public Accounts Committee.

I commend this motion to members as it is an important motion and an important step in ensuring that the Government is responsive to our committees and, in this case in particular, of all cases, to widespread community concern. Ms Follett identified very clearly that there were a huge number of responses - over 80 responses - many of them from organisations representing, in turn, a huge number of people. There was great community interest in this issue. It is something that should not be dealt with as lightly as it has been dealt with. It is for that reason that I believe that the Assembly should reject the response of the Minister and get him to do it again; properly this time.

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