Page 334 - Week 03 - Thursday, 1 June 1989
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across a number of developments. The Rally applauds the initiatives taken by the Federal Labor Government to establish a Commonwealth fraud control committee. That committee identifies problems in public administration, principally in areas where there is substantial constant fraud - social security and the like - and it brings it to the attention of the Director of Public Prosecutions.
A body such as the ACT Assembly, or the ACT Government, needs an intermediary, a community interface, so that there is an independent commission which can, amongst other things, receive and consider complaints and foster public support in combating corruption.
MR KAINE (Leader of the Opposition) (10.46): I support the establishment of the advisory committee that Mr Collaery has proposed, but not for the reasons that he has put forward. Mr Collaery spoke at length about business people doing their business generally honestly, and I submit that the public servants in this city by and large do their business honestly. I do not accept unsubstantiated allegations that public servants in the ACT Administration have been or are corrupt. Nothing that Mr Collaery has said this morning has produced one scintilla of evidence to suggest that of anyone. What he has outlined perhaps suggests a lack of appropriate legislation and regulations as to how things are to be done, and perhaps it reflects in some cases some maladministration or some poor administration. But I do not accept that it in any way represents corruption of the kind that Mr Collaery has suggested.
However, despite that, I believe that in the interests of open government and assuring the ratepayers and the taxpayers of this community that business is being properly done on their behalf and that public money is being spent in the best interests of those people from whom the taxes come, we have to make sure that there is a body that can in future overlook the operations of the ACT Administration to make sure that there is no suggestion of corruption, let alone outright corruption. I support Mr Collaery's proposal.
I think it is unfortunate that the committee will be born under allegations of corruption on the part of certain public servants. I think it would have been better, if it is thought that corruption exists, to have put the evidence on the table, to have had it properly investigated - if necessary by the Australian Federal Police. But simply to keep asserting, without producing any evidence, that corruption exists, I think is unfair, and I would go almost so far as to say that it is improper, certainly from a member of this Assembly. However, I agree to the establishment of the committee as a safeguard against any future problem, and I reassert that my acceptance of the establishment of this committee in no way implies acceptance on my part of allegations about any current or past member of the ACT Administration. Let us be quite clear on that.
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