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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 1 Hansard (18 February) . . Page.. 29 ..

MRS CARNELL (continuing):

We went on to speak about community consultation and their comments on that. Without referring to some of the people who were at that meeting, we went round the room. We, first of all, had a person from the ROCKS group who indicated that he was unhappy with the community consultation. We then went through his problems, and we talked about what had happened with ROCKS. A community-based group had been set up that had representatives of whoever wanted to be on it; in fact, I think there were something like 20 people on it in the end. He was concerned at that stage that not everybody turned up for meetings, and I did indicate that I could not do much about that, but that is another problem. We have had regular meetings over a six-month period with regard to ROCKS and the City West project. I then asked him, "Was that not enough consultation?". He said, "Yes, there was lots and lots of consultation", and he and the group even indicated that the level of community consultation was significantly higher than it had been in the past. I said, "What is the problem?". He said, "We are not confident that the community consultation loop is being completed". In other words, "We do not know what is happening with the community consultation after we consult".

We went to the next person in the room, who is on one of Mr Humphries's community planning groups - again, something that never existed under the previous Government. As well, she said that this was a level of consultation that had never happened before. It is very interesting, Mr Speaker. We then went on to a member of a community council, who again admitted that under the previous Government community councils had not been paid the $3,000 that we are paying them for staff and costs and so on. He also admitted that we had had discussions - - -

Ms Reilly: Spartan costs.

MRS CARNELL: You asked the question about the meeting, Ms Reilly. He admitted that we had discussions with community councils significantly more often. I accept that there was a feeling around that table that we had consulted so heavily that they then did not know what happened to that consultation. A couple of weeks ago - not as a result of this meeting - knowing that there was concern amongst some community groups that this was the case, we set up a new unit in the Chief Minister's Department, with three full-time people and headed up by Tina van Raay, whom many people in this room know, to make sure that we have a dedicated unit in the Chief Minister's Department to close that consultation loop, to ensure that people know well what it is we are doing with the significant levels of community consultation that are currently going on out in the community.

To answer Ms Reilly's question about what we are doing, what we are doing is not just some sort of stop-gap approach. We have dedicated three full-time staff to be available out in the community to ensure that people know what is happening with regard to consultation and are in a position to have a point of entry to government when they want to make a point or when they have an idea.

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