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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 11 Hansard (26 September) . . Page.. 3289 ..
Gungahlin-street names
Ms Dundas, in accordance with standing order 128, fixed the next day of sitting as the time for the moving of this motion.
2001-02 annual reports-select committee
Appointment
MR HARGREAVES (11.35): I move:
That:
(1) the annual and financial reports for the calendar year 2001 and the financial year 2001-2002 presented to the Assembly pursuant to the Annual Reports (Government Agencies) Act 1995 stand referred, on presentation, to a select committee on annual reports for inquiry and report;
(2) the committee be composed of:
(a) two members to be nominated by the government;
(b) two members to be nominated by the opposition; and
(c) one member to be nominated by the ACT Greens or the Australian Democrats;
to be notified in writing to the Speaker by 4.00 pm today;
(3) the committee report by the first sitting day in 2003; and
(4) the foregoing provisions of this resolution have effect notwithstanding anything contained in the standing orders.
Mr Speaker, the Labor Party wishes to have annual reports referred to a select committee so as to be consistent with its position as indicated in this place in the past. I do not think anything further needs to be said.
MR STEFANIAK (11.36): Mr Speaker, the opposition will be opposing this motion. We suggest that notice No 3 should apply. It is a complete waste to set up a special committee to consider annual reports when we have a perfectly good system, the one which applied last year. Having the relevant standing committees deal with annual reports is far preferable to setting up a select committee at additional inconvenience and expense to the Assembly. The standing committees have proven that they do a good job with annual reports.
MS DUNDAS (11.37): The Democrats will also be opposing this motion and supporting the motion to be put forward by Mr Stefaniak. The establishment of a select committee asks a small group of MLAs to scrutinise the annual reports of all departments. The scrutiny of these reports needs to be thorough and specialised. I believe the standing committees are better suited to the job than a select committee.
As a member of three of the Assembly's standing committees, I am not trying to get out of more work. I look forward to scrutinising the annual reports, as the budget consultation process, the debate on the budget and the month long budget estimates hearings raised many questions that hopefully will be answered in the information in the
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