Page 1201 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 23 March 2010
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Planning, Public Works and Territory and Municipal Services—Standing Committee—Report 5—Report on Annual and Financial Reports 2008-2009, dated March 2010, together with a copy of the extracts of the relevant minutes of proceedings.
I move:
That the report be noted.
In tabling this report, I draw the attention of members to the 13 recommendations and, in particular, to recommendations 10 and 11 and the preceding text in clause 4.31 of the report in relation to consultation on Green Square in Kingston. I need to emphasise that I did not, and do not, agree to have those particular matters included in the recommendations in the report. I will refer directly to that recommendation in a moment.
However, I would make mention of recommendation 3 which, if accepted by the government, will, the committee believes, remove a level of ambiguity that the committee found in relation to the Chief Minister’s annual report directions. The issue seems to have arisen due to 2009 changes to the Government Procurement Regulation 2007 public tender threshold. You will see that recommendation 3 states:
The Committee recommends that the Chief Minister’s Annual Report Directions for 2011 onward be updated to reflect the 2009 changes to Government Procurement Regulation 2007 public tender threshold, so agencies report on the reason for use of Select Tender procurement process, if applicable, for contracts of a value greater than $200 000.
The Assembly will note that there are two other recommendations in relation to the Chief Minister’s directions and a number of recommendations in relation to sustainability issues.
The committee was also concerned to hear about what was reported as a backlog of heritage nominations. The committee recommends, in recommendation 7:
… that the Department of Territory and Municipal Services provide information in the 2009/2010 Annual Report on the progress of, and the process used to address, the backlog of heritage nominations.
Members would be aware that there is a review of the Heritage Act 2004 actually happening as we speak. A discussion paper has been released to generate responses from the public. Submissions have been called for and the closing date for those submissions is Friday, 7 May 2010.
I will now address the matters that I referred to earlier. Members will note that, in 4.31, comments are attributed to the committee to which the majority of members of the committee do agree. However, I must emphasise that I do not. I understand the concern that is being expressed by other members in relation to what was consulted on with residents and businesses at the ACTPLA consultation late in 2009. However, I do not share the other members’ view that this was in fact a “sham” consultation and,
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