Page 451 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 13 March 2007
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Surplus government property
DR FOSKEY: My question is to the Minister for the Territory and Municipal Services and it relates to so-called surplus ACT government property policy and guidelines and the closed ACT government schools and library sites. Minister, are any of the identified closed, or to be closed, ACT government schools, as well as the closed ACT Griffith library, currently being examined under the ACT government’s “Evaluation guidelines for properties identified as potentially surplus”, and, if so, what decisions have been made to date?
MR HARGREAVES: Yes. None.
DR FOSKEY: According to section 3.2.2 of the policy, the property group is meant to be notified 12 months prior to a site’s closure. Has the property group been notified of the potential surplus of school and library sites 12 months prior to their closure, and, if not, when will they be notified?
MR HARGREAVES: They have not been notified of any potential library closures—because there aren’t any. The library at Griffith has been closed and there is no further intention to close any libraries. Any suggestion that we are going to be closing libraries is just typical of the misinformation that is spread out by experts like Mr Smyth. So the answer to your question—if there was a hidden, sneaky bit in the middle of that—is no.
With respect to the schools, the property group is aware, as indeed is everybody else in this town, of the particular potentially surplus sites.
Emergency Services Authority—management
MR PRATT: My question is to the minister for emergency services. I understand that a report has been commissioned by the Department of Justice and Community Safety into the financial and project management of the Emergency Services Authority or Emergency Services Agency. Minister, what did this report conclude about the management practices of the authority/agency? What conclusions did this report reach about the management of capital works projects by the authority/agency? What conclusions did the report draw about the waste of funds by the authority/agency? When will you table this report in the Assembly?
MR CORBELL: I am not aware of a report in the manner Mr Pratt describes. If he can provide me with further information, maybe I could better answer his question.
MR SPEAKER: Mr Pratt, do you have a supplementary question?
MR PRATT: Indeed, Mr Speaker. I ask the minister if he could take on notice and come back to this place on what is clearly a series of audits undertaken by an authority which has already come up with 39 recommendations, at least in draft. Could he work around the basis of that information and come back and confirm to this house whether such a report is being prepared and whether such an inquiry has been undertaken? And when will that report be tabled?
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