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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 14 Hansard (11 December) . . Page.. 4973 ..

MRS CARNELL (continuing):

This protocol recognises that consultation is a central principle of good management practice and an integral component of good planning and decision-making. Over the next six months, training will be provided to all program managers in understanding and implementing the principles of the consultation protocol and the manual. The use of the consultation register, which is updated quarterly, will avoid duplication and minimise the possibility of community groups being overloaded with consultation. For the information of members, I would now like to table the register of community consultation.

A comprehensive database of community organisations is also being developed to maximise participation. It is intended that all consultations are to be evaluated during and after the process to ensure that lasting improvements are being made. I do not believe that any government could do more to improve consultation processes or to demonstrate its commitment to maximising the participation of the community in the decision-making process.

Mr Speaker, I would like to use this opportunity to thank Tina van Raay and her staff for a great job in producing this protocol and also for the huge amount of consultation that has led up to this tabling today. I present the protocol and statement and move:

That the Assembly takes note of the papers.

MS TUCKER (4.58): This looks like a really great document. I have just realised that you were having a go at the committee, and I am trying to work out what you were saying. You said that the statement was out of date and that we should have made it three years ago. What we did was, three years ago, produce a discussion paper. We did have a lot of community input to the production of that discussion paper, which actually outlined what the community, academics and so on thought was best practice. There were basic principles outlined there. We made that concluding statement in September. I did not realise that there was competition to produce a document. I realised that we were working in tandem; but I did not think that was a problem.

In this statement, we came out with what we saw as best practice and what we thought was important. We did point out where certain consultations had been disastrous, in the view of the committee. I still think they were, and I do not think you could really argue with that. You might be able to argue with it; but, anyway, obviously we thought that some rather bad processes had occurred.

There is one thing I have not found in here - I do not know whether or not it is in here, because I have not had time to look at it carefully. We did ask that the coordinating role be taken over by the Customer Commitment Unit. What we said in our statement was that the responsibilities should be expanded to include responsibility for instigating recommendations as to where community consultation should occur in overall government activity; ensuring that duplication does not occur; acting as a resource for advice on consultation processes; the development of whole-of-government accountability measures; and evaluation of individual consultations as well as of its own coordination function.

Debate interrupted.

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