Page 2097 - Week 06 - Thursday, 8 June 2017
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First, I would like to say that I am disappointed to have to mention once again the importance of consultation. It is quite obvious to just about any person on the street that good policy is derived when governments do good consultation. This government has not adequately consulted with the community on this bill because it feels these changes are minor in nature.
The government is good at talking the talk when it comes to consultation, but it does not walk the walk. It talks about a lot of grand plans, about new ways to consult, spending more money on community consultation initiatives such as participatory democracy and community juries. I do not believe that the issue is the style of the consultation; it is actually the fact of doing any consultation. The government does not bother to consult on many of these issues. It cannot get the basics right.
Not only did the government fail to consult with the community on this particular bill; they also made it very difficult for my office to consult, as emails were ignored and phone calls not returned until very late in the piece. Remember, Madam Deputy Speaker, that this bill was set down for debate in the last sitting period. My office approached the minister’s office on 23 March asking for a briefing on this bill. After 10 emails and five phone calls, six weeks later, a briefing was finally arrived at, for the Monday before this bill was originally due to come to the Assembly in the last sitting.
Since the last sitting, the bill not having been debated until now, my office reached out again, asking more questions. Again, my office and the community have been left waiting. Questions were answered only after 5 pm last night. If my office is having this much difficulty in getting any engagement from the minister, you have to question how members of the general community and community groups are getting on trying to consult.
Unintended consequences are avoided through consultation, through gathering the views of many different interested parties. The response I have had from the minister’s office is that this amendment to the Heritage Act is proposed to fix a drafting error that came about through the introduction of a clause back in May last year to address a gap in legislation at the time as to what information must be included. Each time something is introduced, it has the possibility of introducing another problem. By not looking at all the possible permutations and combinations, allowing different people to view what has been proposed, the chance of making a mistake—a small, inadvertent, accidental, unintended mistake, but a mistake nevertheless—is greater than if you allow interested parties to participate in the process.
The amendments that I will put up in the substantive part of this debate are a result of consultation with the community and those who have extensive experience in the policy areas, those who can see the possibility of unintended consequences from these changes proposed today. Every community group my office and I spoke to was unaware that the government were making these changes before the last sitting period. Every community group was outraged. It is not the role of the opposition to do the
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