Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 5 Hansard (3 May) . . Page.. 1482 ..

Leave granted.

MR HUMPHRIES: On 17 February 2000, the then Chief Minister, Mrs Carnell, tabled in the Legislative Assembly a report prepared by Mr Tom Sherman AO which assessed the government's response to the coroner's recommendations arising from the inquest into the death of Katie Bender at the demolition of the Royal Canberra Hospital. Overall, Mr Sherman's findings were positive and noted that a considerable amount of work had already been done at that point to implement the coroner's recommendations.

In his first report, Mr Sherman stated that seven recommendations had been substantially implemented; 14 recommendations were well on the way towards implementation; five recommendations required more work to achieve implementation; and the remaining four recommendations were outside the responsibility of government or were too general to assess for implementation.

At the time of the release of Mr Sherman's report, the then Chief Minister, Mrs Carnell, announced two things in this place: the establishment of a high-level coordinating committee and a commitment to re-engage Mr Sherman in 12 months to conduct another assessment of the progress in implementing those recommendations that required more work. A coordinating committee was established. Its role was to oversee the implementation of the coroner's recommendations and to ensure that the work was completed to a satisfactory standard. The coordinating committee, comprising chief executives, met on a regular basis to monitor progress. In December 2000, the coordinating committee agreed to re-engage Mr Sherman to conduct a final review of the recommendations that were outstanding from his previous review.

Mr Sherman's terms of reference were to assess the progress made on the ACT government response to the coroner's report since his report of 14 February 2000. Mr Sherman undertook this assessment and presented his report to the chief executive of the Chief Minister's Department on 1 March 2001. Overall, Mr Sherman reports that there has been very substantial progress over the past 12 months, to the point that there has been effective implementation of all but three of the recommendations. In relation to those three recommendations, Mr Sherman states that the remaining work is relatively minor.

The three recommendations requiring minor work to bring them to the implementation stage are: recommendation 4, dealing with letter of acceptance procedures; recommendation 16, addressing the advertising of tenders; and recommendation 20, dealing with the publication of the outcomes of the WorkCover review. I will now outline each of these matters in turn, including the government's response to Mr Sherman's comments.

Recommendation 4 refers to the preparation and issue of a letter of acceptance procedure. Although this matter is now covered by an ACT Contracts procedure, Mr Sherman recommends that these procedures be extended beyond ACT Contracts to apply to all relevant areas of ACT public administration. This could be implemented by way of a procurement guideline issued by the Government Procurement Board once it is established. The government accepts this recommendation and the matter will be addressed by the Government Procurement Board when it is established. In the

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .