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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 01 Hansard (Wednesday, 11 February 2004) . . Page.. 197 ..

Advocate or to examine the Community Advocate’s report. This goes to some explanation of these gaps in understanding this significant issue.

In relation to this year’s report, the one report which the Leader of the Opposition focuses on, of course, the examination of that particular report was conducted in December of last year. I am not sure that the report has been tabled yet. We await that.

That is the history of the matter. We have all indicated that one of the issues of real concern in relation to communication between the Community Advocate, the department and ministers is how and why it was that this particularly serious matter did not come to the attention of any of us in this place.

MR SMYTH: I thank the Chief Minister for his five minutes of context. Chief Minister, I will repeat the question: why did you fail to act on this vital information? Why was it not raised by senior officers of your department? Who is to blame for this failure—you or your department?

MR STANHOPE: I am not sure that anybody is to blame for this failure. Certainly, the Community Advocate did include a reference in her annual report to this particular issue. The significance of that reference certainly was not grasped by anybody in my office or by me. I was not aware of it, I had not read it and it was not drawn to my attention. That is why I had not responded to it specifically. I regret that. It is a matter of enormous regret to me that I did not know of that particular reference in that report.

I do not have an answer about why the systems that we have in place, or anybody involved with this issue, including ministers and including those members of the opposition and members of the crossbench who formed those committees appointed specifically to inquire into the annual reports, did not raise these issues.

I do not know why those members of that select committee who were charged with the responsibility of inquiring into those reports over three years—of course, primary amongst those charged with that responsibility was the opposition, which chairs the committee and had chaired that committee in those periods—chose, for instance, in relation to the 2001-02 report, not even to bother calling the Community Advocate. They did not call the Community Advocate to be questioned and did not report on the Community Advocate’s report in that year.

If one goes to the committee’s response to the Community Advocate’s report for 2001-2002, one finds no reference to it, because it was not examined as the committee, led by Mr Stefaniak, took the decision that there was nothing in the Community Advocate’s report that required examination. There was nothing to be reviewed: that was the decision that Mr Stefaniak took in relation to the 2001-02 report and I believe that it is the decision that he took in relation to the 2000-2001 report.

Mr Smyth: Point of order, Mr Speaker: the Chief Minister continues to avoid the question. The question is about him or his officials. It is not about anybody else. It is quite a specific question. We had five minutes of context in the answer to the main question. What about a real answer to the supplementary question?

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