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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 4 Hansard (17 April) . . Page.. 1007 ..

MR DE DOMENICO: I will have a look at whether the department was looking at traffic calming, and I will take the other part on notice as well.

MR SPEAKER: I suggest to members that, if we are dealing with planning matters, apart from block and section numbers, they also indicate the area of the suburb that they are talking about, because I do not think that we all know the block and section numbers so accurately.

ACTEW Employee - Alleged Corruption

MR OSBORNE: Mr Speaker, my question is to the Deputy Chief Minister, Mr De Domenico, being the Minister responsible for ACTEW. Minister, can you explain to the Assembly why allegations of multiple theft and impropriety made last year against a former employee of the ACTEW media unit were not properly investigated and why this man was allowed to resign, even though, as I have been made aware, the AFP officers felt that this matter totally warranted an official inquiry?

MR DE DOMENICO: In answer to Mr Osborne's question, no, I cannot tell him why that happened, because I do not know the circumstances under which that gentleman is no longer with ACTEW; but I will find out and let Mr Osborne know.

MR OSBORNE: I have a supplementary question, Mr Speaker. Minister, do you think that a matter involving the defrauding of tens of thousands of dollars warrants some kind of external inquiry, and do you think that the allegations should be handled by the AFP Fraud Squad?

MR DE DOMENICO: I am not aware of the allegations. Should the allegations be proved correct, Mr Osborne, the answer to your question is yes.

MR SPEAKER: I also remind members that questions relating to individuals should really be placed on the notice paper, under standing order 117(d).

Australian Public Service - Job Cuts

MR WOOD: Mr Speaker, my question is directed to the Chief Minister, and it refers to a question asked yesterday. Chief Minister, yesterday you said that modelling of the likely impact on our economy of Federal job cuts by your colleague John Howard had been carried out by your department. That is what you said. Would you indicate to this house what is the result of that exercise and what are the likely impacts of those reductions?

MRS CARNELL: It is very difficult, as I said yesterday, to give a likely impact of a number when we do not know what it is; but, as we all know, the sorts of impacts on the ACT of reductions in the Australian Public Service would be in areas such as, obviously, construction, rates, all sorts of charges and so on. Also, of course, there would be the extra costs to the community of having in it people who may not be

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