Page 2601 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 14 October 1992
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PUBLICATIONS CONTROL (AMENDMENT) BILL 1992
Debate resumed from 24 June 1992, on motion by Mr Stevenson:
That this Bill be agreed to in principle.
Debate (on motion by Mr Lamont) adjourned.
Sitting suspended from 12.02 to 2.30 pm
QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE
Department of Education and Training - Secretary
MR KAINE: I direct a question to Mr Wood, the Minister for Education and Training. Three of the members of the panel that led to the appointment of the new secretary of your department are generally well-known names. As I understand it, they are Professor Roger Scott, Ms Helen Williams and Mr Jeff Townsend. There is a suggestion that there was a fourth member. Can you confirm whether or not there was and, if so, who that member was?
MR WOOD: This is a very disingenuous question by the former Chief Minister, now the Leader of the Opposition, whose term may be long on that side, although not long as Leader of the Opposition. There were not three generally well-known names on that panel; there were four generally well-known names, and he knows that. He knows those four names; and he has asked that question in a deliberately spurious way, to cast further doubt on the process, which was a decent and proper one.
Mr Kaine: So, there were four?
MR WOOD: You are being deliberately misleading. You know that there were four names and you have always known that there were four names. To say otherwise is simply untrue. Three of the four names are the three he has given; and the further name is an officer in my office, Ms Peta Beelen, as Mr Kaine well knew.
MR KAINE: I ask a supplementary question, Madam Speaker. I did not know that, and I asked the Minister the question to get confirmation of some information that was passed to me - not by the Minister. Since he has now confirmed that suggestion, will the Minister indicate to me whether or not he considers it normal practice to have a Minister's staffer sit on an interview board for appointment of an officer at agency head level in the ACT Government Service?
MR WOOD: I can tell Mr Kaine that in the context of what happens in the ACT, in relation to this and other appointments, it is normal practice.
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