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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 2 Hansard (9 March) . . Page.. 423 ..

MS CARNELL

Department of Health and Community Care contracted ACTIV League services through ADD Inc. ACTIV League was not separately incorporated and did not have its own board of management.

The report "Survival" referred to in the Canberra Times on 8 March 1999 was commissioned by ADD Inc. and was an internal report to ADD Inc. The ACTIV League program coordinator, Jude Byrne, resigned in the course of the review but has continued to serve the community as national president of the Australian Intravenous League, has worked with the Alcohol and Drug Council of Australia and is a member of the Prime Minister's national illicit drug committee chaired by Major Brian Watters.

ACTIV League disbanded soon after the report was completed and ADD Inc. continued temporarily to provide a peer service, ADD Inc. Network, for injecting drug users, pending the calling of tenders for this service. Canberra Injectors Network, CIN, was set up in response to injecting drug users' wishes to have an organisation which directly represented them, not merely spoke on their behalf. I think ADD Inc. made it clear that all they could do was speak on behalf of injecting drug users. I think that was one of the reasons that the Canberra Injectors Network picked up the contract.

As a result of the tendering process, as we found out, CIN won the contract. CIN is a new organisation, a different organisation, Mr Kaine, even though some of the people involved in it were involved in the ACTIV League but certainly, by no stretch of the imagination, all of them. This new organisation is an incorporated body with a board of management. Two of the board members are former employees of the ACTIV League but the other four members are not. The president is Tarquin McPartlan, an ex-employee of ACTIV League, and other board members are Jude Byrne, Peter Holcombe, Peter Parkes, Phyll Dance and Sera Pinwill. CIN does not employ any staff at present, as the contract has not yet been finalised.

In common with all contracts over $10,000 per annum, CIN will be expected to report quarterly on performance in terms of quantity, quality and timeliness and on its financial performance. This will include auditing of its financial performance in line with other contracts that are let. Performance indicators are currently being finalised.

In addition, as CIN is a new organisation working in an area which is quite challenging, an organisational mentoring reference group has been established as a requirement in the contract. Three well-established organisations - the AIDS Council, the Hepatitis C Council and Workers in Sex Employment - will provide support and direction to CIN as it establishes itself. The department will evaluate the performance of CIN after one year of operation. This was a standard requirement in the tender, irrespective of which agency won the contract. I think that shows quite categorically that the department has put in place very definite checks and balances for the new organisation that did not exist for the old ACTIV League.

It is also important to remember that the report spoken about in the Canberra Times was an internal report commissioned by ADD Inc. As I understand it, no action was taken with regard to any alleged fraud or whatever. The new organisation has a board. It has

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