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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 03 Hansard (Tuesday, 9 March 2004) . . Page.. 871 ..

to the PAC’s recommendations rather than be bound by the PAC’s approval, but I am willing to see how the Chief Minister responds.

Finally, Mr Speaker, I have circulated a simple one word amendment which is absolutely crucial to setting standards and clarifying what is expected in annual reports. Section 8 currently says that the minister “may” issue a direction for annual reports—that is, the minister may or may not issue directions; it is optional. However, since the ministerial directions are the means of spelling out what our public sector annual reports contain and the standards which must be met in providing information on each agency’s performance, it is essential that these directions be mandatory. Indeed, the whole reporting disclosure and accountability process could be ineffective unless the requirements are clearly spelt out. So, accordingly, at the appropriate time I will propose that the word “may” in section 8.1 be replaced with “must”. I will seek the support of members in making this improvement to the quality of our annual reports.

MS DUNDAS (10.48): The ACT Democrats will be supporting these annual reports bills. Annual reporting is an essential element in the transparency and accountability of governments. Annual reports should provide a comprehensive and detailed account of the activities of government agencies, including the clear presentation of hard data regarding the operation of departments and other government authorities.

Members of this Assembly spend a lot of time reading and digesting annual reports and committees of the Assembly spend considerable time investigating the contents of the reports and government activities. Every year the committees produce a range of recommendations regarding content and the layout of annual reports, and often these recommendations relate to glaring and obvious mistakes.

As we are aware, the Auditor-General recently investigated the effectiveness of annual reporting by ACT government agencies. The report of that investigation highlighted a number of deficiencies in both the ministerial directions and the compliance of government agencies in implementing these guidelines.

It is clear that there is considerable room for improvement in the preparation of annual reports. This legislation takes a very small step to ensure that there is a specific timeframe for the presentation of annual reports and makes the process of completing and tabling annual reports clearer. There is also an additional reporting requirement on the work of the agency to respect, protect and promote human rights, which will commence at the same time as the Human Rights Act.

I note that amendments have been circulated. I am happy to support those amendments and I will explain why in the detail stage. However, I note that that they address the general framework of developing ministerial directions and do not delve into the minutia of reporting guidelines.

There is always the temptation to use this type of legislation to insert more specific and prescriptive elements in respect of annual reports. However, I note that we have chosen not to go down this path because it is not necessary at this time. While government ministers, particularly the Treasurer, love to stand up in this place and chastise members for being too prescriptive and for inserting very specific reporting and disclosure

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