Page 1899 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 14 June 1994
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ACT Government Service, its relationship with statutory authorities, statutory office-holders and Territory owned corporations, and the links of these to Ministers of the ACT Government. The Select Committee on the Establishment of an ACT Public Service received a number of submissions from Professor Roger Wettenhall, Professor of Public Administration at the University of Canberra. Professor Wettenhall also appeared at a public hearing held by the committee and spoke of issues of public administration from his experience of these issues at both the national level and the international level. It seems to me that the Government would be well served by an independent consultancy undertaken by Professor Wettenhall, perhaps, or someone equally well qualified to examine carefully the proposed structure of the ACT Government Service and other entities, presenting the Government with a wide range of perspectives that would be useful in the long term in determining the structure of government.
I wish to turn briefly to the question of whistleblowers legislation. The committee noted that the Government has included Part XII, Whistle Blowing, clauses 236 to 240, in the Public Sector Management Bill and that the Leader of the Opposition tabled the Public Interest Disclosure Bill on 23 February of this year. I disagree with Mr Berry when he says that not much work went into the development of that Bill because I know for a fact that many months were spent in drafting that particular piece of legislation. As a result of a decision by the Assembly, the committee had the opportunity to consider the issues as part of our process of examining the Public Sector Management Bill. The committee has made a number of recommendations with regard to the whistleblowers legislation, and I believe that most of them have some support from all members of our committee. I look forward to considering these issues in greater detail, should the Assembly adopt recommendation 1 of the committee's report about the establishment of an Assembly committee to oversee the implementation of the separate ACT public service.
In conclusion, Madam Speaker, I hope that members of the Assembly will find the report of the Select Committee on the Establishment of an ACT Public Service useful and informative with regard to the Public Sector Management Bill, the Public Sector Management (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill and the Public Interest Disclosure Bill. The way forward with regard to these Bills is now up to the Assembly to decide, as it should be.
Debate (on motion by Mr Lamont) adjourned.
Motion (by Mr Lamont) agreed to:
That the resumption of the debate be made an order of the day for consideration as a cognate debate with the executive business order of the day relating to the Public Sector Management Bill 1994.
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