Page 2191 - Week 07 - Thursday, 27 August 2020
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community groups, industry bodies, advocacy groups, and individuals from across the ACT community. I would like to thank the ministers for making themselves available and for answering our questions.
It was clear to all members of the committee that the pandemic has had a very significant impact on this city, and there are some cohorts and some sectors of our community that have done it very tough. Some of these groups have obviously done it tough, but others have been below the radar. I hope that the committee has been able to expose and shine a light on some of these issues.
I hope that the government have already taken on board some of our suggestions and continue to take on board the recommendations of this report and the previous recommendations. An important recommendation in this report is to reiterate the significance and currency of the previous recommendations. I am very grateful to all those that contributed to the inquiry. This interim report has 40 additional recommendations. In total, we have over 60 recommendations.
I would like to extend my thanks to everybody in the committee office and in the Assembly for making this a reality. To the committee secretary, Annemieke Jongsma, Hamish Finlay, Danton Leary, Frieda Scott, Lydia Chung, Dennis London and Paul Crowley, thank you very much for all that you have done to make this very important scrutiny process a reality. It was a first to have such extraordinary powers, and it was a first to have a committee that acted in this way. I again reiterate my thanks to the committee members for the very collaborative and professional way in which the committee conducted its business.
MS CHEYNE (Ginninderra) (10.16): Hopefully this will be the last time that there are comments on this committee, depending on what happens over the next few weeks. I, too, want to not only commend our fourth interim report to the Assembly—perhaps final, but at this stage interim—but also put on the record my thanks to the ministers who appeared—I think almost every minister appeared—and the committee staff who, and I know we have said this before, really did go above and beyond in their establishment of the committee; in enabling us to meet, whether it was via Zoom or Webex; and in maintaining the pace at which we have been meeting for many weeks now. We have met about twice a week, with a private meeting and a hearing, if not more.
The committee secretariat has been constantly available and made things work and happen for us. It all went quite smoothly when you consider the extraordinary number of people that we have had appear before us, including individuals and community groups, not to mention the many public servants and the ministers. I want to put on the record my thanks to those public servants and ministers, particularly those who appeared very regularly, including Minister Stephen-Smith, Dr Kerryn Coleman and the Chief Minister, who willingly made that time available.
There was a collegiate and collaborative approach by the committee and by those who appeared. Very candid observations were given by those who appeared, and that helped the committee very much in its scrutiny and oversight role.
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