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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 2 Hansard (20 May) . . Page.. 405 ..

MS CARNELL (continuing):

told that the Government was more than willing to brief them on issues such as the competition policy complaints unit and other issues such as the milk review. But, unfortunately, because the forum did not have a quorum, those briefings could not happen, Mr Wood. So, it is very interesting that if people do not turn up at meetings they cannot then whinge that they were not briefed.

MR SPEAKER: Do you have a supplementary question, Mr Wood? Order! Mr Wood wishes to ask a supplementary question.

MR WOOD: The Chief Minister, in her answer, seemed to me to be saying that it was something referred to in this Assembly that gave her the basis for saying it. Chief Minister, my supplementary question is: Are you confident of your view about that decision of the forum, or would you care to go back and check the accuracy of anything you might have said in that respect? I do not think you have given a very clear answer at all today. You also appear to be distancing yourself.

MS CARNELL: Mr Speaker, the point I made was that I was not sure - I think, the words were - whether it was discussed in the Assembly; but, certainly, it has been discussed in other places. I have a memo from the chair of that forum, Brian Acworth, and I will read some of it into Hansard:

You would be aware that the Forum's 3 December, 1997 meeting was cancelled because only two Forum members had confirmed their attendance. This necessitated the cancellation of the CSO presentations by ACTEW's acting CEO, and the General Manager from EPIC. At the time I had asked Dr Sheen/Greg Clark to notify the Forum members of the situation, and to confirm that an alternative meeting date would be advised. You may now care to advise me of your thoughts about rescheduling this meeting.

There are other issues with regard to the review of the Milk Authority and so on. Mr Speaker, I do not think members of the forum can go on radio and complain that they have not been briefed if they have not turned up at the meetings.

I come back to the exact answer. My advice is that the forum asked that public servants not be present at their meetings; that the Government not direct the approach or the issues that the forum looked at; that the forum wanted to set its own agenda. That is very definitely my advice on this. Certainly, if that advice is not right I will come back; but my advice is very definitely that that is the case. Quite seriously, the forum is not working well; but it is not working well simply because a large number of members seem to be very keen not to turn up.

Mr Berry: Would the Chief Minister table that document?

MR SPEAKER: Which document? There is a convention - - -

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