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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 10 Hansard (Thursday, 26 August 2004) . . Page.. 4411 ..

Community and Health Services Complaints Commissioner has special duties in representing the public interest in the provision of health services.

The Commissioner for Public Administration represents an independent viewpoint on the structure of governance in the territory and the Commissioner for the Environment represents the public interest in the protection of the environment and in contributing to sustainability. So commissioners are not restricted by the partisan view of politicians or by the agenda of the bureaucracy and they do not necessarily represent the sectional interests of only one group. Commissioners act in the broader interests of the public and they act to protect the rights of those who are sometimes unable to speak for themselves—people in those areas that have been identified as needing special protection.

I am concerned that a Small Business Commissioner might not necessarily be a representative of the public interest. Instead of representing the whole community he or she might be a representative of sectional and commercial interests. Is it appropriate for someone to be assigned to a special government position of commissioner if he or she represents the specific financial interests of only one group in society? We could add to that a whole array of other sectional commissioners—for example, the big business commissioner, the property development commissioner and even a banking sector commissioner. We have to be careful that we are not giving preference to one commercial group over the interests of the general community.

The title “commissioner” is not one that should be given out willy-nilly because it risks devaluing the status of all our commissioners. People have argued that small business needs extra support as it provides a public benefit in supporting the economy and in keeping people employed. I fully respect the work of small business and I recognise the important role that it plays. But we must be careful when we are handing out the title “commissioner”.

My second concern is that very little work has been done to establish how this position will fit in with government bodies—in particular, the Ombudsman and the AAT—and with government agencies such as BusinessACT, government shopfronts, ACTPLA, Canberra Connect and the ICRC. Canberra Connect and the government shopfronts are more connected now. Obviously all those agencies deal regularly with businesses. We do not want any new agency being created that either duplicates existing roles or simply serves as a referral service to existing agencies.

It is also clear that most of those agencies perform tasks that might overlap the proposed work of the commissioner. In fact, there is little in this piece of legislation that could not be achieved administratively by existing agencies. So it is unclear how current work and programs will be affected by the introduction of a new system. More work must be done to ensure that the commissioner will fit into existing government structures. Those who wonder whether the commissioner will be able to reduce their problems with government, or whether he or she will stand as a further impediment to their access to government services echo that concern.

It is interesting to compare this proposed new position with the now defunct position of Commissioner for Land and Planning. The Commissioner for Land and Planning was conceived as an independent mechanism—someone who could bring impartiality to the

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