Page 2930 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 14 September 1994
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something else somewhere else. Mrs Carnell is a great exponent of telling everybody - and particularly the last person she spoke to - that she is going to support them; that there are not competing interests; and that the job of government is not balancing those interests.
That, in fact, is what the job of government, at the end of the day, is. Where, through this consultative process, we come across situations where there are competing needs, or competing positions that are represented within that public consultation, it is the responsibility of government to weigh, to balance, to test. I think that is the position that this Government has realistically adopted in the protocol that it has published. It is the position that we have adopted since assuming government four years ago, and it is the commitment that we have to continuing the consultative process as we win the next election and serve the people of Canberra for the next four years.
MRS CARNELL (Leader of the Opposition) (4.08): Madam Speaker, I think the Government should actually be ashamed of this document, and I will actually speak about the document that the MPI was supposed to be about. In January 1992 the ALP announced that it was going to have a consultation policy. "Wonderful!", we thought. Nearly three years later, we have this document. I must admit that, when I heard that it was coming out, I was a bit worried. I thought, "Oh, dear; the people of Canberra really do want a good solid consultation protocol and, heavens, this one might be better than the one that we are going to release. This is a worry". But it took me only three minutes to read the document and burst out laughing, because the document simply has nothing in it. When you get to page 13 you read statements such as:
Not all decisions made by the ACT Government affect every citizen in the ACT.
That is a surprise! It continues:
For this reason, ACT Government agencies should identify the appropriate constituency with which to consult in order to maximise the effectiveness of the consultation process.
Obviously, that was worth the paper it was written on! What about this:
Consultations may vary from a situation where a limited number of groups are approached, to a situation where opportunity for input is given to the widest range of interests possible.
That is another huge waste of paper. I think one of the things we really have to look at, after Mr Lamont and others have spoken about all of these wonderful things the Government has done in the area of consultation, is this: What about VITAB? What about the great consultation with the racing industry, with ACTTAB, with all of the people that were involved or should have been involved with that process?
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