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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 7 Hansard (2 July) . . Page.. 2167 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

practicality of comparative information. A report released today by Dr Collignon on the Canberra Hospital mentions the difficulties we experience in comparing like with like in relation to delivery of services. There would be an important role for the Auditor-General to play in relation to benchmarking.

Other recommendations by the Estimates Committee that are particularly important and that I would like to see implemented fully and earnestly are those that go to a number of issues relating to the ACT indigenous community. In recommendation 8 of the report the committee recommended that the Government consult widely with the ACT Aboriginal community and peak indigenous organisations to ensure whole-of-government policy in relation to the ACT Aboriginal community, that the policy developed through that consultation be resourced appropriately and that the Government fully monitor the development of an ACT-wide strategy to ensure that all government agencies comply with the final recommendations arising from that process.

Through the estimates process of speaking with officials from different departments I have noticed what seems to me at times a lack of cohesion in relation to the all-of-government approach to issues affecting the indigenous community. I think here in Canberra we still have an understated range of issues affecting the indigenous community that we do need to address much more seriously than we have in the past. They go to that interrelationship between Aboriginal community services, health services, housing and education and the interrelationship - a growing problem, unfortunately - between indigenous people and the criminal justice system. There are a range of issues there that I am not convinced that we as a community have grappled with as well as we could. We have a range of issues affecting the indigenous community in the ACT that I believe deserve much greater attention and I recommend to the Government that it not only say that it will implement recommendation 8 but do so in a serious way.

I will come to the recommendations relating to Bruce Stadium in a minute, but there are a couple of other matters in the Estimates Committee report that I would like to touch on first. Recommendation 20 went to a possible continuing role for the Competition Policy Forum. I support the need for the Competition Policy Forum to be reconvened to inquire into the adequacy of the legislation review process and the exhortation by the committee that the Government fully implement the report on an independent council on competition policy. I think we await with some impatience the Government acting on the vital need to ensure that there is an appropriate review of competition policy issues in the ACT.

I note that it was the committee's view, very much echoing the view of ACTCOSS, that the Government had failed to adequately examine social needs and to distribute resources accordingly. It certainly is a logical step to ask that an independent regulator examine the consistency with which departments are applying national competition policy. There has been an unfortunate tendency in the past for the Government to use national competition policy to further its own ends while conveniently applying a different interpretation when it appeared that that particular legislation might benefit the public interest. We, of course, have the experience of the Belconnen pool, which stands as a stark and appalling misuse of competition policy principles.

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