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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 10 Hansard (23 September) . . Page.. 3112 ..

MS REILLY (continuing):

I am sure that we all, as members of the Assembly, understand the continuation of responsibility for the work of the committee. We do not have to go back to the beginning to be able to look at a statement and see the evidence that was presented there. Obviously, there was other work of the committee that had happened before I joined in March 1996. I took part in the end stage of the violence in schools inquiry. I took the opportunity to read the transcripts to find out the discussions that had happened previously. I did not suggest to my colleagues that we start the whole inquiry again, because I understood and recognised the work of committees and the work of a sitting member.

In relation to the community consultation process, I read the previous material; I understood where the committee had reached when it put out its discussion paper in 1995. Possibly, I had further understanding about community consultation through the work I was doing within the community prior to coming to this Assembly. I knew about this inquiry previously because organisations I was involved with gave presentations to the committee. I understood what they were inquiring about. I also understood some of the issues around consultation in the ACT community because they predated this Government that was elected in 1995. There was a lot of discussion in the ACT community in 1994 and previously. This is an ongoing contentious issue that affects the ACT community and has affected it for quite a number of years. This is not something new that has popped out of nowhere.

As well as being aware of the activities within the ACT community at large, I also, I suppose, had the advantage of having many years of community consultation, often about difficult and complex issues and in cross-cultural settings. I could understand, from reading the work of the committee that was done prior to my starting on that committee in 1996. I was able to accept the work that had been done previously. I could accept the findings that had been reached in the development of the statement that has been put before you today.

There is one further matter that I want to comment on. Mrs Littlewood made the comment that one of the problems with the statement was that there was no corroborative evidence, and the particular consultation that she mentioned was with regard to SWOW. I find it amazing that the work of the Ombudsman of the ACT can be questioned in this way. The discussions about the consultation process that led to the decision about SWOW were found to be at fault in the Ombudsman's report. This was not something the committee found; it was actually confirmed by another body, the ACT Ombudsman, who is an independent body and has an independent role to play in the workings of the ACT. They found that there were defective consultative processes used in reaching the decision about closing SWOW. I find it amazing that any member here could question the work of the Ombudsman.

I would just like to recommend the statement to you. It was the result of quite a number of months - and years now in this case - of work by the ACT Standing Committee on Social Policy. The Social Policy Committee and other committees are an important part of the Assembly's workings, and I think it is important that we all work together on these committees and that we recognise, acknowledge and respect the work done in those committees.

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