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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 13 Hansard (3 December) . . Page.. 4409 ..

MR WHITECROSS (continuing):

Mr Speaker, the recent Estimates Committee raised concerns about the timing of annual reports. At the moment Territory-owned corporations have to produce annual reports by the end of October, whereas other government agencies have to produce annual reports by the end of September. The Estimates Committee was not able to determine any reason why a different standard should apply. Indeed, representatives of at least one of the Territory-owned corporations that appeared before the committee were also unable to come up with any reasons why different standards should apply. I think that bringing the reporting dates into line will also assist the Estimates Committee, or whatever scrutiny arrangements are in place in the next Assembly, in ensuring that they are able to scrutinise the activities of Territory-owned corporations alongside the activities of other government departments instead of, as happened this year, having effectively to reconvene the Estimates Committee in order to consider annual reports of Territory-owned corporations, which came in significantly later than other annual reports.

The other matter which is dealt with in this package of Bills is the kind of reporting which is required. As the shadow Minister shadowing Totalcare Industries, I was very disappointed by the very poor standard of the Totalcare Industries annual report presented this year. It contained very little information about their performance in relation to the activities that they are required to undertake on behalf of the Territory. It was a very inadequate standard of reporting indeed compared with the Department of Urban Services or any of the other government departments which handle activities for the Territory.

I think it is important that we do not establish a situation in which the level of accountability and the level of reporting to parliament and to the community about activities of government can be undermined simply by the process of moving government activities from the purview of a government department or government statutory authority to a Territory-owned corporation. For those reasons, it is important that the same standards of reporting should apply. This, of course, is not to ignore the fact that under company law Territory-owned corporations also have obligations to meet in relation to annual reports; but I believe that the requirements of the Annual Reports (Government Agencies) Act would be complementary to requirements, rather than in conflict with them. It is, of course, possible for the Chief Minister, in laying down guidelines under the Annual Reports (Government Agencies) Act, to ensure that reporting requirements for Territory-owned corporations do not come into conflict with the Corporations Law.

I believe that these statutory reporting requirements will send a clear message to the boards and the chief executives of Territory-owned corporations that this Assembly does expect high standards of reporting from Territory-owned corporations in order to scrutinise their activities. They are still owned by the people of the ACT, and they have a responsibility to the people of the ACT to report on their activities. With the passage of this legislation, we should be able to expect that we will not get a repeat of the low standard of reporting that we saw from Territory-owned corporations this year.

While it is not a matter covered by these Acts, I was particularly concerned that the Totalcare report did not even appear to comply with the requirements in relation to the Freedom of Information Act or the Public Interest Disclosure Act. These Bills will ensure that Territory-owned corporations like Totalcare are more conscious of their obligations

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