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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 10 Hansard (23 September) . . Page.. 3115 ..

MR SPEAKER: Order! You have spoken twice already, Ms Tucker.

MR HUMPHRIES: For example, I note on page 4 - - -

Ms Reilly: Effective - that can be money saving too.

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, I would argue that most of the things in here are money costing, not money saving. For example, reference is made to the fact that people have complained about inadequate - - -

Ms Reilly: You do it effectively once you save money?

MR SPEAKER: Order!

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, this really is, if members look at it very closely, an inconsistent document in terms of that first conclusion and the rest of the conclusions. It is pointed out, for example, that there is not adequate opportunity for people appointed to advisory bodies to go back and engage in their own consultation exercises with those communities from which they come. That is necessarily a costly and expensive extension to the process of consultation that is added to or provided for by the sorts of arrangements already in place.

I am sorry that Ms Reilly looks so stunned by that; but, naturally, if you have to suspend a process of consultation while the stakeholders concerned go back and make further inquiries about the issues that are being debated, then you lose the advantage of having representative people on those sorts of bodies. Very often they are chosen to sit on such representative bodies or bodies providing advice to agencies of government in order to draw upon their experience in the areas and to be able to say, "This is what our sector or my constituency thinks about these sorts of issues". Sometimes there will be new proposals come forward that you have to go back and ask about; that is true. I emphasise again the incredible elaborateness of that process. It is extremely elaborate; and for Ms Reilly, in particular, to criticise, when they are now more far reaching and more extensive than they were under the former Labor Government, I think, is a bit rich.

I emphasise again that, although cost is not the only criterion, it is an important criterion. For example, I do not think anyone has done an estimate of the cost of consultation in the ACT community at the present time; but it runs, I have no doubt, into many millions of dollars - not hundreds of thousands - spent on public consultation in the ACT. I have no doubt that the ACT, per capita, engages in more consultation than any other jurisdiction in Australia, by a long shot.

Mr Speaker, you can overconsult. Members will recall in the last sitting we had a report by the Planning and Environment Committee on a draft variation to the Territory Plan relating to variations to development conditions in shopping centres. An additional round of public consultation had been engaged in at the suggestion of the P and E Committee because it was felt by the committee that people had not been adequately reached about proposed changes the Government was putting forward in the draft variation.

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