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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 06 Hansard (Tuesday, 22 June 2004) . . Page.. 2272 ..

The Council on the Ageing noted that there were a number of positive initiatives in the budget, but they were very concerned about three issues: the time taken between the approval of places for residential care at the Commonwealth level and those places becoming operational at the territory level; housing and accommodation generally for older people and the fact that it is simply not keeping up with the ageing of our population; and work force planning in terms of the work force providing services to older people and an ageing workplace.

A number of concerns in relation to the Auditor-General’s Office generated a recommendation. The committee heard that staff turnover in that office was about 25 to 30 per cent and that 50 per cent of the staff had less than two years experience. The committee recommended that the government ensure that next year’s budget provides additional funding for that office commensurate with the need to increase the office’s capacity to review performance statements. I commend that recommendation to the government.

The committee was curious about the use by the Treasurer of the term “economic cycle”. On exploring the issue at the hearings, the Treasurer was not able to give a clear definition of what it meant, so the committee has recommended that he desist from doing so if he does not know what it actually means. It is really quite pointless to do that.

I turn to the responsibility of the territory parent. During the hearings of the estimates committee, the Vardon report was brought down. The committee had a considerable number of concerns in relation to issues around that report. As a result of a letter I wrote to Commissioner Vardon after the hearing, she sent a further letter to us which we were able to consider. That letter arrived only in the last few days. A key issues for us was why there was simply no recommendations in the Territory as parent report for action to be taken against any departmental officers who held the delegation of territory parent.

The Territory as parent report states that the report made no recommendations about individuals and that was not the role of the commissioner. The minister was asked about that and she stated that she thought that it was a decision that the commissioner had come to and that she was not aware that the commissioner did not see her role as one of making recommendations about individuals. The minister also stated that the commissioner had not been inhibited by the government in terms of her capacity to make findings critical of individuals and that the government had had to work out what course of action to take regarding the chief executive who had been stood aside.

As a result of the minister’s response, the committee wrote to the commissioner seeking an explanation as to why she did not believe that it was her role to make recommendations about individuals and, as I have indicated, she wrote back. The commissioner informed us that the terms of reference for the review did not require her to make recommendations of that kind and the act did not provide for the commissioner to make recommendations on, or to determine, employment-related outcomes for individuals. She also noted that it would not be fair for one entity—namely, the commissioner—to conduct a review and investigation and then recommend outcomes for individuals. A copy of that letter is attached to the report.

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