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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 11 Hansard (25 September) . . Page.. 3333 ..

MS FOLLETT (continuing):

Indeed, there was some consultation with Mr Moore and other members of the Assembly. Again I have in mind that even after some degree of consultation had taken place - for example, on the appointment of Ms Vardon as the chief executive officer of Education - the then Government was subjected to a pretty vicious attack on that appointment. The Government ought to be grateful for the fact that the Opposition and the other party in the Assembly and the Independents have refrained from that kind of politicisation of appointments. We have refrained in a way that the Liberal Party in opposition were totally incapable of doing. I point that out, Mr Speaker, and I think Mr Humphries could have been a lot more generous in his comments.

Mr Berry: They drove Charles Wright and Aliprandi out of town.

MS FOLLETT: That is exactly right. As my colleague Mr Berry says, both Mr Aliprandi and Mr Wright were driven out of Canberra. Private businessmen in Canberra were driven out by the personal attacks of the then Liberal Opposition.

Mr Speaker, I believe that the amendment Bill which I have presented significantly improves the operation of the Statutory Appointments Act. It has been the case, very regrettably, as all speakers have pointed out, that committees have often been approached very late, sometimes with only 24 hours' notice of appointments. It is also the case that we have been approached retrospectively, and retrospective consultation is becoming something of a trademark of this Government. They take the decision, make the appointment, and then come to you and ask, "Is that okay?". It is quite obvious in relation to appointments already made that there is no scope whatsoever for a committee to say, "No, it is not okay. We would like other people appointed". The amendment that I have moved, Mr Speaker, is aimed at cleaning up the Government's act. They wanted this consultative arrangement and the Assembly endorsed that will, so let us make it work. That is my sole motivation in moving in this way, Mr Speaker.

One comment that Ms Tucker made related to her concern that the same people kept getting appointed to boards and committees. Mr Speaker, I do not know whether the current Government has the arrangement that we often employed in government, and that was to advertise positions on boards and committees and invite people to express an interest in them. The other method of trying to broaden the range of people who might be appointed was to have a register of people who were willing to serve on government boards and committees. That register was regularly updated. People were able to put forward their views on which area of work they would be most interested in and they were able to put on the record what their qualifications were. I found that a very useful means of ensuring that we got a broad spread of community representation on boards and committees.

In particular, members might recall that as a government we had a policy of 50 per cent representation of women and men on boards and committees. In that regard the register was a very useful way of bringing forward the names of women who may not otherwise come to public notice and who would make a very good contribution in many of the areas of their expertise. I would commend that to the Government. If they have not kept up either of those methods of attracting people to boards and committees, they might want to reconsider it.

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