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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 7 Hansard (21 June) . . Page.. 2389 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

to be more and more inclined to underutilise other sentencing options that are available to us. There has been a significant reduction in community correction hours which, measured against the increase in the imprisonment rate, is a cause for concern and should operate as a catalyst for engendering debate about appropriate forms and methods of sentencing. There seems to be amongst that a growing proclivity to send people to gaol. One wonders why, having regard to the acknowledgment of the fact that 70 to 80 per cent of the people that we do imprison are there as a result of an offence that is related to a substance abuse problem.

I do not want to traverse the whole range of issues that were well traversed by the Estimates Committee and simply repeat what was done there, but one other issue which continues to concern me and which I believe warrants further investigation by government is the extent to which we outsource legal work. That is an issue that I have raised consistently over the last three years. It is an issue that I do not fully understand in the context of government initiatives in relation to the role that it expects the ACT Government Solicitors Office to play vis-a-vis the role that it now expects from the private legal sector.

As we have seen in recent times, it was the private sector that the government turned to for advice on the move by CTEC to the airport. It was the private sector to which the government moved in order to seek advice on whether there was some conflict of interest in relation to certain people involved in that move. It was to the private sector that the government went in relation to the contract about the doomed rock concert. It was to the private sector that the government went in relation to the contract dealing with the doomed and failed marketing contract for Bruce Stadium.

One wonders why, in all of those circumstances, the ACT government did not use the ACT Government Solicitors Office, why it was that the government felt that it would get a better return, better legal advice, better advice generally or a better service from the private sector in relation to the provision of legal advice, the drafting of contracts and the management of contracts. We have now got a range of seriously flawed and failed contractual processes and I think that it would be interesting for the attorney to receive advice on and undertake some analysis of whether we had any better service in relation to all of those failed dealings by going to the private sector than we would had we managed those matters in house.

Why should the ACT Government Solicitors Office not handle all aspects of each of those contractual issues-the rock concert, the management contract, aspects of ACTEW and AGL? We went outside for all of those. In addition to the question of why we went outside, what was the selection process for going outside the ACT Government Solicitors Office? How do we select those firms to which we give this significant government legal business? That is an issue for the attorney to pursue. What tendering process do we use in relation to the legal profession? Why should the legal profession not be subjected to the same tendering procedures as other providers of service to the government? When we go to one of the major legal firms round town for the provision of advice to the government, what sorts of tendering processes or expressions of interest do we pursue? My understanding is none. The question that has to be asked is why.

MR SPEAKER: Order! The Leader of the Opposition's time has expired. Do you wish to speak for a further 10 minutes?

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