Page 13 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 9 February 2010
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assessment panel. The committee also spent some time trying to find on the government’s websites the criteria for direct sales. So this is an area which needs to be tidied up and clarified. Again, it is one where all the rules need to be adhered to.
With respect to a particular one that is relevant to this process, when the plan was first put forward, it included a reasonably large gas-fired power station. Our understanding is that one of the reasons the government initially supported it, and supported it for a direct land sale, was the power station. The proposal was subsequently changed and that power station was significantly reduced but there was no relooking by government at whether or not it was still the right thing to do. We think that was one of the fundamental flaws and we want the criteria for the direct sales process to be significantly tightened up.
Thinking again about consultation, I have got another gem of a quote. We were talking to ActewAGL about consultation and about how much what the community said influenced them. I am afraid that Mr Costello said that, yes, they were listening to the community but they said it would go ahead anyway. He said:
If it got approval, of course. Sorry, would it not go ahead if it got approval, after following proper process?
I can understand that from a commercial point of view, but, from the point of view of the community of the ACT, this is really not the way to go about things.
One of the things that was also abundantly obvious as part of this process was that strategic planning in the ACT is lacking. Recommendation 15 states:
The Committee recommends that the Government create an ACT Planning Strategy as required by the Planning and Development Act 2007. The Strategy should be prepared by the Chief Minister’s Department and should integrate infrastructure, transport, energy, land use, economic, population, environmental, and social issues. There should be significant community involvement in the strategy.
We were really concerned that the government is making these major decisions in a very ad hoc fashion. This is not the way in which the long-term future of the territory should be planned.
The other thing which was clearly concerning, and something which the government need to work on, not just from the point of view of planning and consultation but from the point of view of everything, was that the government seem very much to be in silos. Bits of the government are beavering away doing their thing—and that is all good—but whole-of-government cooperation seemed to be lacking in this case. We have a number of recommendations about this. I will read recommendation 18:
The Committee recommends that the Government consider making changes to the budget and accountability frameworks to support crossagency initiatives. In particular, where possible, agency performance measures should be amended to facilitate whole of government working. This should be done without undermining appropriate accountability and reporting measures for each agency.
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