Page 3446 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 17 August 2011
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openness, accountability and integrity through the ACT public service. The government will be supporting Ms Hunter’s motion today. However, I seek leave to formally move the amendment that has been circulated in my name:
Leave granted.
MS GALLAGHER: I move:
Omit paragraph (2), substitute:
“(2) calls on the Government to:
(a) respond to the Standing Committee on Justice and Community Safety’s report into the Freedom of Information Act 1989 by the next sitting period;
(b) undertake a comprehensive review of the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1994 that includes consideration of appropriate protection and support for complainants and appropriate avenues for compensation and other industrial remedies;
(c) undertake further work on improvements to current complaints handling processes within the ACT Public Service and respond to the ACT Ombudsman’s proposed ten-point plan to improve ACT Government service delivery, issued on 3 August 2011;
(d) ensure that all agencies within the public service value complaints consistent with the Commonwealth Ombudsman’s Better Practice Guide to Complaint Handling 2009; and
(e) report back to the Assembly by the last sitting day in 2011.”.
I think the amendment, in a sense, expands on Ms Hunter’s theme but brings forward bringing the report back to the Assembly instead of in February next year to the last sitting day in this calendar year.
Mr Speaker, debates about standards in public life are never far from the front pages of our newspapers and are certainly not a new subject of discussion in this place. Nevertheless, the recent events in the UK have drawn into sharp focus the value citizens the world over place on the integrity of institutions of government and the media. People and institutions of influence are, rightly, held to high standards of accountability, probity and integrity in their interactions with citizen and with other institutions. Those of us in public life are properly subjected to scrutiny of our own behaviour, our own actions and our own statements.
We are very fortunate in Australia, and in the ACT that we have robust institutions to safeguard standards in public life. Through the parliament, the media and the judicial system, public figures are held accountable for what they do and say. We are fortunate to live in a robust democracy where our police, our judiciary, our public servants and our elected leaders are free to discharge their functions without influence from bribery and corruption. We are fortunate to have a public service that is apolitical, where decisions are made based on merit and sound arguments.
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