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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 10 Hansard (24 November) . . Page.. 2751 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

They have to take the issue seriously. When they are giving evidence to the committee, they have to make sure that they are frank and forthright in the evidence that they are giving. It is not their job to protect their political masters. If the committee is not sharp enough to ask the right questions, nobody expects public servants to volunteer information that would get their political masters into trouble. At the same time, if the committee asks direct questions, it expects full and frank information. We do not think that we got it. That is why the comments were made in the report. I do not know why Mr Hird is happy with the way the public servants behaved in this regard.

I heard him say that we should have taken it up with Ministers. Ministers are expected to give a political answer to questions in the Assembly on policy matters and so on; but when it comes to the detail, when we are questioning public servants about the operation of various agencies throughout the ACT, we expect full and frank information. We do not expect to have to invite officers back to correct the record, which is what we had to do in this case. We do not expect to discover in a circuitous route wild fluctuations in the evidence that has been given to this house and to committees, and that is what occurred in relation to the education matter.

It was not about a lot of money in the scheme of things. It was said in this house that it was going to cost $50,000 to conduct police checks if a certain motion had been passed in the past. The department - reluctantly, I must say - in the first round of the Estimates Committee inquiries recounted their position and discovered that it was less than half of that and then when the police were asked to provide evidence as to the cost we discovered it was less than half again. That is a wild fluctuation in anybody's imagination. It is frustrating for members to sit in committee, receive that information and know that if it has happened once it has probably been happening somewhere else and we have not been able to uncover it.

The point I make is that I think the Government needs to remind public servants that when they come along to these places we expect to get full and frank advice when we ask questions of them. We do not expect them to protect their political masters. If they do not want to answer a question, they should say that they do not want to answer it and flick-pass it to their Minister, but do not give us incorrect information. We can deal with the politics with the Ministers, but we cannot deal with the politics with senior officers. It is just not fair to them and it is not fair to the committee.

The committee also looked at Bruce Stadium and a whole range of issues where the Government has performed badly, such as the Feel the Power campaign. Again, only a small amount of money was involved, but that gives you an insight into what is going on behind the scenes in management terms. If the Government can muck up something like that, if public servants are saying, "Can we get out of this?", something is seriously wrong. (Extension of time granted)

Moving to education, the Minister for Education gave evidence in relation to Copland College. I must say that I was concerned about the apparent lack of interest in doing something more about the enrolments at Copland College. It is heading for non-viability if something is not done. We all know how this Minister functions when a school reaches what the Government describes as non-viability; he withdraws the funding, tells the school board, the school board is left with no alternative but

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