Page 3206 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 22 August 2012
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short changed. At paragraph 3.14 the committee says that the failure to apply a robust risk framework in the management of the project is incomprehensible. You had a debacle in 2008 called the power station and data centre. The committee report said, “Fix your processes up.” The committee was ignored. The arrogance of this government and these ministers and their disrespect for the hard-earned taxpayers’ dollars that they have squandered on this project that is now 360 per cent more than the initial cost is, as the committee says, incomprehensible.
We go to record-keeping at paragraph 3.15. The Auditor-General identified a number of instances of poor record-keeping in relation to various aspects of the project. At paragraph 3.16 the report states:
The Committee notes that throughout the Seventh Assembly it has made mention of the importance of robust record keeping practices per se in a number of inquiry reports and more specifically in its report reviewing Auditor-General’s Report No 3 of 2008: Records Management in ACT Government Agencies. The Committee reiterates previous comments it has made in relation to the need for effective records management practices in the ACT Public Service …
And there are some recommendations there. But, yet again, another report in 2008, and we have a set of ministers who simply choose to ignore the work of the Assembly’s committees because here they are, four years later, making the same mistakes, arrogantly ignoring good suggestions made to improve practices. They do not care because they have no respect for this Assembly, obviously no respect for the Assembly’s committee and even less respect for the taxpayers and the dollars they take from them.
Page 20 of the report talks about contaminated sites transferred from the commonwealth at the commencement of self-government. As to recommendation 6, I think all would agree that we need the government and the Assembly to make representations to the commonwealth on behalf of the territory with a view to recouping the costs being given to us through these contaminated sites.
There is a section on the management of asbestos in the ACT. I remember the sterling job that was done when we had to clean up the sheep dip sites that we also inherited from the commonwealth. The then government went away, mapped those sites and alerted the community to them. It was an excellent process, and recommendation 7 states:
The Committee recommends that the ACT Government should examine the feasibility of establishing a centralised government maintained asbestos exposure register.
That is for individuals who may be exposed. Recommendation 8 states:
The Committee recommends that the ACT Government examine the feasibility of establishing a public register of all buildings, structures and sites in the Australian Capital Territory which contain asbestos.
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