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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 9 Hansard (5 September) . . Page.. 2868 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

Mr Speaker, I trust that ACT public servants are capable, generally speaking, of detecting adequately what are the probity issues they need to address before any particular probity issue actually arises. Our public servants are very good at that. But what needs to be understood is that very often an independent person is required in the process to determine and advise on the probity issues that arise out of that. For example, with the section 41 development of Manuka and the government's dealings with the tenderers for that site and so on, there was a independent probity adviser appointed for that exercise.

Mr Quinlan: You guys need a permanent one, though.

MR HUMPHRIES: We will have a permanent one, Mr Speaker. We will be having one for section 56 in Civic. We will have them for a range of activities. The government's intention, as announced in the budget or the draft budget, was to have a single entity that would provide probity services across the ACT government, a body that would provide a high quality of service because that body would have a great depth of experience to draw on.

We have gone to the market and obtained the services of PriceWaterhouseCoopers. That is described by the opposition as being privatisation gone mad. Mr Speaker, if that is the case, then you have to wonder what sort of tree Mr Quinlan has been living up for the last four or five years because a large number of Australian governments are using companies of this kind for probity advising services.

I will not mention what the governments of South Australia and Western Australia do, or the Commonwealth government, because that would not much impress those opposite, but I am sure that Mr Quinlan will be interested to learn that the Labor governments of Victoria, New South Wales and Tasmania make extensive use not only of private organisations, companies, for probity services but also of PriceWaterhouseCoopers for that very kind of service.

Mr Speaker, the government of Tasmania, for example, has PriceWaterhouseCoopers as its independent probity adviser for the Department of Premier and Cabinet-not exactly a low-key involvement in the Tasmanian government. The New South Wales Labor government of Mr Carr has PriceWaterhouseCoopers as its adviser for the Rail Services Authority, for the New South Wales Department of Transport and for Landcom. Indeed, the City of Sydney also uses the same firm.

Mr Speaker, probably no government uses these services as extensively as that of Victoria. The Victorian government of Mr Bracks uses PriceWaterhouseCoopers in a range of government agencies: the Department of Justice in Victoria; the Public Transport Corporation of Victoria; the Melbourne and Olympic Parks Trust; Yarra Trams; the Victoria Police; the Victorian Casino and Gaming Authority; Multimedia Victoria; the Victorian Government Purchasing Board; the Victorian Department of Natural Resources and Environment; the Department of State Development; the Victorian Managed Insurance Authority; on and on the list goes. I have only got halfway through it.

Mr Quinlan: Can we use it, too?

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