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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 10 Hansard (30 August) . . Page.. 3744 ..

MR KAINE (continuing):

and make sure that the structure is set up and that the right resources are provided to him to make sure that he gets on with the job and is capable of doing it.

In summary, the committee believes that such a commissioner or such an entity ought to be established. We believe that the Auditor-General is the appropriate person to take on that additional function. That entails the government getting into negotiations with the Auditor-General as to how he might best take on this new function. I think this is an important thing. There is clearly a body of people in the community who feel let down by the system. They feel that their grievances have not been comprehensively heard, and they believe that in many cases the outcomes have meant, for them, great disappointment. I think that is a reflection on the system, and it is a matter the government is obligated to take on and pursue.

I do not know any more than any of the rest of us here whether I will be sitting in this seat after 20 October. If I am, I will be continuing to press the government to pick up the recommendations of this report and put them into effect quickly, because I think it is necessary. But should it turn out that I am not here on 21 October, then I exhort the government to take this matter seriously, discuss it with the Auditor-General and devise a model that can be put into effect quickly.

I would seek to support other members of this place who, if I am not here, most certainly will be to make sure that the government acts on this report and puts into place an agency to which aggrieved citizens, or citizens who simply believe that things are not all that they ought to be, can go and have matters heard. I commend the report to the Assembly and to the government.

MR HARGREAVES (11.50): I concur with the things Mr Kaine and our chairman have said. I would like to underscore the need not to concentrate exclusively on the prosecution of corruption or lack of integrity in government. We should be concentrating on education and prevention. If we remove the culture, then we will not have a prosecution problem. That is the theory. That came through loud and clear when we spoke to Commissioner Moss and to the Hon John Hatzistergos from the New South Wales Parliamentary Joint Committee on ICAC.

We need to look at the scale of things happening in the ACT. I do not know whether the lack of integrity and the possibility of corruption in the ACT public service are anywhere near what they are in the New South Wales system. I do not think the ACT needs a big stick approach. But I concur with Mr Kaine. We need to attack the culture, and attack it properly.

MR HUMPHRIES (Chief Minister, Minister for Community Affairs and Treasurer) (11.51): I have had only a brief look at this report, but I welcome its recommendation that the Commission for Integrity in Government Bill 1999 not be proceeded with. I note the comment by Mr Kaine that the bill provided for a regime for dealing with the problem-whatever the problem might be-which was overly elaborate for the ACT.

With respect, I think that was perfectly obvious on the day the bill was tabled. The bill was lifted almost word for word from equivalent legislation in New South Wales. The cannibalisation of the New South Wales legislation was so obvious that you could see

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