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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 12 Hansard (7 December) . . Page.. 3840 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

with the issue of a replacement for the remand centre. As a result of that, the decision was made to bring that forward.

I will certainly discuss the implications of that decision with the community panel, whose work, of course, does not end with this report; it is a continuing exercise. My feeling, having discussed a range of issues with the panel members at various stages, is that they will welcome the decision; that is my guess. In any case, they will be involved in further consultation.

MR WOOD: I have a supplementary question, Mr Speaker. I have heard Mr Humphries and some of his colleagues talk endlessly about how they consult with the community. They do go on about it, and we all acknowledge its importance. My question draws to your attention, minister, the name of the panel you established - community advisory panel. Wouldn't you talk to a community advisory panel? You have ignored them on this part of the issue.

MR HUMPHRIES: Firstly, that is not a question, Mr Speaker. Secondly, that was not the title that we gave to it. It was called the community panel, not the community advisory panel. Thirdly, the panel understands, because I have discussed it with members of the panel in the past, that not every aspect of this process can be a matter for broader debate with that very large group. It is a group of 20 people or so. Not every element of this process can be handled in that way. Obviously, we have a large panel there. We have an extensive process for discussing this major project.

Mr Wood: Not even a phone call to the chair.

MR HUMPHRIES: I am not going to apologise for the process we have used. I have to say that the process we have used here is a more extensive and more careful means of involving the stakeholders than anything that has been done by any previous government in this place on equivalent major projects. Where were the equivalents of community panels or, for that matter, LAPACs or any of the other mechanisms we have put in place in government when the people opposite were in government? You have criticised our commitment to consultation, but our practice of consultation greatly exceeds what we inherited from the former government, so I do not make any apologies for it. We have had a process in place.

Occasionally, there are points where you cannot get the full extent of consultation that you would like, but the process is an infinite improvement on what works in other places.

Mr Wood: You know Jim. You could have given him a call, surely.

MR SPEAKER: Order! Settle down, please, Mr Wood.

MR HUMPHRIES: Ringing the chairman of the panel does not amount to consulting the panel.

Mr Wood: There was not even that. Not even to apologise.

MR SPEAKER: Order!

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