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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 10 Hansard (23 September) . . Page.. 3478 ..

MR SMYTH (continuing):

SACS award and have to fight tooth and nail to get it. The committee suggests that some sort of process be set up to make that easier for them.

There is some information in the report about FaBRiC itself. FaBRiC is experiencing a lot of emerging need arising from the bushfires and because of the services that they provide. There is a need at all time for their services and we have suggested that the government renegotiate funding levels with FaBRiC so that they can continue their services. Members might not know it, but the Treasurer pointed out during his stint before the committee that he was formerly a director of FaBRiC, so I am sure he will know about and have a great deal of sympathy for the work which FaBRiC does.

Also included in the bill is an allocation of money for a position with the union movement to work on occupational health and safety. I think it would be fair to say that, basically, this is just about money being given to Unions ACT to create a position because there is no process in place, there is no service level agreement, and there is no contract. I think you could say that this is a special favour for special friends, simply because every other community group, business organisation, arts group or any other group that wanted to come forward and get some money would go through a process. There is no process in place in this instance. There is not even a reporting mechanism.

I think that it is unfortunate that the government is willing to give taxpayers' money to the union movement for this position without attaching to it the same process that they attach for all other groups. We will be urging other groups to watch the process by which ACT unions get money, simply because I do not think the government has shown good process and accountability in this regard. I would suggest that the government should secure from Unions ACT a contract and some sort of agreement about what the money will be spent on and how it will be accounted for.

Mr Speaker, I would like to thank a number of people who were involved in the entire process, but before I do that I will point out that, in the main, the departments got back the answers to questions on notice quite readily, but some are still outstanding, which is unfortunate because committees cannot complete their work properly without the assistance of the departments. Mr Speaker, I expect that, at some stage, you will be tabling in this place answers yet to be received to questions taken on notice. I would like to make the comment to the departments that the best and quickest way of handling questions taken on notice is to get the answers in before reports are tabled. I would like the committee office to make those available to you, Mr Speaker, so they can be tabled for the information of members.

I thank Ms Dundas and Mr Hargreaves for their hard work. The process moved smoothly and we got through it quickly. I thank also all the other members who turned up during the hearings to ask questions. To the staff of the committee-Ms Siobhan Leyne and Ms Jane Carmody, with the assistance of Judy Moutia-I thank you for all the work that you have done. The committee was assisted in some of the deliberation phase by Messrs Jamison and Bushmills and I thank them for their assistance in getting the process to work smoothly and deliver a good quality report by lubricating the wheels of discussion.

Mr Speaker, the committee has recommended that the bill be passed. We are aware that there is still work to be done on fixing the damage that was done in the bushfires of

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