Page 828 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 16 March 2010
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likely to contact state or territory fair trading agencies for help, advice or redress. The ACT Office of Regulatory Services in my Department of Justice and Community Safety was approached by the commonwealth as the ACT agency best placed to assist consumers in resolving certain concerns.
As I explained last month, and as every member here now is aware, in July 2009 the Office of Regulatory Services entered into a memorandum of understanding with the commonwealth Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts in relation to the sharing of information around complaints lodged with ORS about insulation installation under the homeowner insulation plan.
Officers within my department, as with all government departments, frequently engage with counterparts in other jurisdictions, including the commonwealth government, in relation to information-sharing arrangements. Such arrangements and MOUs are commonplace and are usually handled at an agency level, as was this one.
I have provided to the Assembly all documents that relate effectively to the chatter between ACT public servants about the program. The emails, the notes and the information about the scheme, I provided all of it—all of it. This in no way means that I have not answered correctly the questions I have been asked in this place. When asked about official documents between the federal government and the territory, I answered the question correctly at the time and as soon as I was made aware of the MOU I corrected the record.
This MOU was not, and was never intended to be, a contract for the provision of work by the ACT government under the homeowner insulation plan. It was not a document that contemplated the relationship between the consumer and the supplier. It was not a document that considered what was safe or appropriate installation of insulation, nor was it a document that provided for special consumer remedies in situations where there was a problem.
It was a document that provided for the sharing of information between jurisdictions about complaints lodged, in this case with ORS, about insulation installation under the commonwealth scheme. It was one way for the federal government to capture information about registered installers who were not meeting their obligations under the commonwealth scheme—an obligation to meet specified standards as a condition of being registered as an installer-provider for the purposes of the commonwealth scheme.
The ACT fair trading unit receives approximately 148 inquiries a week from consumers across a broad range of topics. Where the issues raised do not fall within the responsibility of the territory, consumers are referred on to the appropriate state or commonwealth government agency. The fair trading unit refers approximately 12 per cent of matters every week.
When the ACT entered into the MOU with the relevant commonwealth department, it did so to ensure that ACT consumers were protected and to ensure that information about any inappropriate practices in relation to the installation of insulation under the government program would be made available to the relevant commonwealth government department for appropriate action. Information was able to be passed to
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