Page 3136 - Week 15 - Thursday, 14 December 1989
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accord and look at certain points of that accord, and if you look at Mr Donohue's evidence to another committee you will see the heavy Residents Rally emphasis on collegiate and committee systems. Now, that might work in some - - -
Mr Jensen: Once again, Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I believe - - -
MR WOOD: It is all right. I am getting off that track.
MR SPEAKER: Order! Resume your seat, Mr Wood. Please do not talk over Mr Jensen.
Mr Jensen: Mr Speaker, I was referring to what appear to be comments about a committee that is yet to bring down its report.
MR SPEAKER: Thank you, Mr Jensen. Please address the question, Mr Wood.
MR WOOD: Now let us get to this committee report.
Mr Humphries: About time!
MR WOOD: Well, I am going to touch it, you know. We did not decide whether there had to be a committee; only how it should be constituted. We were not to determine whether there was corruption or to review existing mechanisms. From the initial enthusiasm of Mr Jensen, who wanted a major body based, I think, on Hong Kong, we have settled for a sensible and reasonable model which will have one full-time employee, a desk and a telephone. It will have one part-time executive officer. It will have a part-time commission.
Now, that is the measure of the problem that we found, because, while we were not required to look at the problem, inevitably we came across the repeated comment: "Well, really, what do you want to set up a massive thing for? What is the need for it? It is clear that there is no corruption in our administration. True it is that there is some low-level crime and in a budget of one and a half billion dollars that is to be expected".
We are not to have an investigative body. It will simply receive information from the community and pass that to existing appropriate bodies for their investigation, and of course it may decide that it will do nothing. It may reject information that comes to hand. This report repudiates entirely the claims of Mr Collaery at the time the committee was established, in which he said it was urgently needed. It repudiates that entirely.
Mr Collaery: At what page?
MR WOOD: On 1 June, at page 329. I will read out what you said.
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