Page 28 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 9 February 2016
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sustain a large number of small—in fact, tiny—individual offices, all with significant management overheads, when we could consolidate some of those functions into larger administrative arrangements that see less management overhead and more dollars going to front-line rights protection?”
Members would recall in this place that the commissioners of the Human Rights Commission have consistently, over a number of years, asserted in their annual reports to this place the need for additional resourcing for rights protection. The government agrees, and in a time of fiscal restraint we have identified a way of achieving this that sees more dollars available for front-line rights protection and less being spent on large management overheads that are a consequence of trying to sustain multiple small, individual statutory offices. That is what this bill is fundamentally about.
I am sorry that Mr Hanson has not read the detail of the bill. I am sorry that he has not caught up with the government’s response to consultation that has now been ongoing for nearly six to nine months. But that is not a reason to refer this bill to committee today. The government will not support the referral; it is time to get on with implementing a better system for rights protection here in the ACT.
MR RATTENBURY (Molonglo) (11.30): The ACT’s statutory office holders play a vitally important function. The Greens have always supported and valued them, and we want their offices to be well resourced, efficient, independent and able to perform their roles to the highest standard. The bill we are considering today will impact several of the ACT’s statutory office holders. It makes changes to the administrative structures of the Human Rights Commission, the Public Trustee, the Victims of Crime Commissioner and the Public Advocate and public guardian.
In his introduction speech Minister Corbell detailed the changes proposed to statutory office holders’ governance arrangements and structures. They are also set out clearly in the explanatory statement, so I will not go through them all again today. But I will address a few specific points.
A primary concern in looking at the proposed new arrangements is whether they would impede the statutory office holders’ ability to do their job, to be independent and to access adequate resourcing. Primarily I looked at the legislation and asked questions of the government through this framework.
The changes do not constitute a loss of resourcing. This is not an efficiency restructure designed to save the government money at the expense of services. As the Attorney-General said when introducing the bill, the reforms are about strategically improving the capacity of these offices to deliver accessible and coordinated services. The reality is that the ACT has several small, separate rights bodies, and there is potentially a lot to be gained in terms of efficiency and the freeing of resources for more important tasks if they are appropriately consolidated.
There is no loss of independence for these important office holders. The new model establishes a president of the Human Rights Commission who will take overall leadership of and responsibility for the operation, strategic direction and governance
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