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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 6 Hansard (15 June) . . Page.. 1850 ..

Point 10

Save the Ridge asks 'why has the committee counted some group submissions and/or form letters as representing groups (and thus not counted) while others were taken as representing individuals (and were counted)...'?

Save the Ridge refers to Attachment B to its correspondence, which mentions that Save the Ridge 'submitted several submissions signed by approximately 2000 individuals' Save the Ridge states that 'these votes for the western option by 2000 residents of Canberra are totally ignored in the committee report. [and are] not tallied in the count of submissions on pages 138/9 of the report'.

The committee did not totally ignore this information provided by Save the Ridge, which was treated as additions to the submission by Save the Ridge. However, the material was not in a form that parliamentary committees accept as separate submissions. This committee's treatment of the material is in no way different to that which other parliamentary committees would have done in the same circumstances.

Save the Ridge states that 'several hundred form letters supporting the Gungahlin Community Council's view have been counted as separate submissions...'

Though many were form letters, these were treated as submissions because they contained a clear name and address and had been separately mailed/faxed/emailed to the committee. The committee also treated as submissions many cards and brief letters supporting the position of Save the Ridge, which were hand-delivered or posted to the committee following a public meeting of Save the Ridge. Paragraph 1.6 of the committee's report refers to this material.

In relation to counting submissions, the committee notes that this is always difficult where an organisation claims to represent many individuals. For example, it can be claimed that it is inappropriate to count as just one submission the material, not only from Save the Ridge (with many members), but the material submitted by other organisations with many members-such as the Aranda Residents' Group, the National Parks Association, the North Canberra Community Council, the Master Builders' Association, the Bus and Coach Association, the Raiders, the AIS, the Gungahlin Community Council, and even the ACT government. Nevertheless, it is customary for parliamentary committees to treat such written material as just one submission; and the committee adopted this approach in its report.

Mr Corbell considers that the evidence submitted by a range of people, including petitions, should have been included in the table of submissions, even though they are not technically a submission to the committee. This would have shown the full extent of peoples' views within the one area of the report.

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