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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 10 Hansard (24 November) . . Page.. 2750 ..

Ms Carnell: We have not seen it before right now.

MR BERRY: Here we go. Hear it over there?

MR SPEAKER: Order! Let us just move on.

MR BERRY: It works. We made a point about Executive members and private business and the committee's report mentions that the pursuit of legislation such as the Litter Bill is not a good use of a Minister's time. The Chief Minister will say that that is the deal she did with Michael Moore in relation to allowing him to deal with certain private members business. That does not alter the fact that we have a hospital that is having difficulty providing care to prospective patients, a hospital that has to bypass emergencies, a hospital that has to flick-pass some of its work to the private sector, a hospital that has burgeoning waiting lists, a hospital that has difficulty with waiting times, a methadone program that cannot cope with demand and a Minister that seems to be diverted by worrying about leaflets under windscreen-wipers. The committee formed the view that that was not a good use of the Minister's time, that he would be better occupied looking after matters of state concerning health, that is, the provision of care - - -

Mr Moore: You are a whacker, Wayne.

MR BERRY: You can hear it again. We are getting close to the mark. The moon is starting to come forward. It is not a good use of the Minister's time to worry about leaflets under windscreen-wipers when these important matters of state are confronting him, and the committee so resolved.

In relation to ACTEW, the committee dealt with possible conflicts of interests where consultants recommend courses of action and then line up to carry out work on contract. That is an important consideration and a good recommendation which ought to be considered positively by the Government. It is not good to see a situation where, for example, a consultant recommends the sale of an asset and then is involved in some way in other consultancies furthering the sale or even involved with a company or in some other connection over the purchase of certain public assets. Recommendation 3 deals with that issue and I think it would be well for the Government to take it on notice. It is a very important matter to deal with.

We had some difficulty in relation to dealing with ACTEW's submission to IPARC. This was a sign of some of the frustration that we had with evidence generally. Most public servants responded to the needs of the committee, but there were some glaring examples where senior officers gave either incorrect information or conflicting information to the committee. If this occurred in a few small examples that we happened to uncover, it raises a question in one's mind about what is left uncovered. There is some comment in the report about consideration being given to putting public servants on oath in future to ensure that we have the correct impact on public servants.

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