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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 6 Hansard (3 September) . . Page.. 1904 ..

MS CARNELL: Mr Speaker, I am pleased to have this opportunity to provide members of the Assembly with information on the work being done across the ACT Government to improve the consultation which is undertaken with the community. Over the past two years my Government has made a very strong commitment to the development and improvement of community consultation in the ACT. I have been only too well aware that there is always room for improvement, especially in a dynamic area such as consultation with the ACT community.

In response to community concerns raised in January 1997 and an Assembly motion passed on government-community consultation in February 1997, a strategy to improve the way in which agencies, on behalf of the Government, consult with the community is being implemented. The strategy includes the Register of Community Consultation. The register is updated quarterly and provides information on all the consultation processes which are occurring between the Government and the community. You may be interested to know that there were 175 consultations shown on the register as at the end of June this year, involving most government agencies and community, business and industry groups. The register provides information about the nature of the project, the target group, the process employed, the timeframe and the status of the consultation, those consulted and the methods used to provide feedback to the participants. For the information of members, I table the Register of Community Consultation.

Mr Speaker, the strategy includes two other key parts - the agreed consultation protocol, which was developed in 1997 through a partnership with community groups; and a consultation manual, which is a guide for government agencies in implementing the principles of the consultation protocol when they consult with the community. I table the protocol and the manual.

The strategy also includes a program for training sessions for ACT government staff. The first round, for senior government managers, was held in March and April this year and the second round, for other ACT government staff, was commenced in August and will continue into September 1998. The strategy also includes the community consultation database, containing information and contact details of the approximately 5,000 community groups which operate within the ACT. It also includes meetings with community groups and organisations. Since its establishment in 1997, the Customer Involvement Unit in my department has met with over 300 groups in the community, providing them with an opportunity to give government their views on consultation and to raise matters of concern.

This Government has a very strong commitment to effective community consultation, as I believe we have demonstrated with the strategy I have just outlined. Governments are elected to make decisions on behalf of the community and at times decisions have to be made quickly. I certainly do not apologise for that fact. In fact, the one thing that I will not do is go to the community for its views on an issue when a decision has already been made, something that I think many governments have done. Consultation must be genuine. It must not be tokenistic. I want the community to be sure that when it is asked for its views they are being asked honestly and that they really do have the opportunity to influence the decision being made. We will not go to consultation on decisions that have already been made.

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