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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 2 Hansard (29 February) . . Page.. 339 ..
MS TUCKER (continuing):
Line 4, proposed new paragraph 19B (2) (c), omit the paragraph.
Line 20, proposed new subsection 19C (2), omit the subsection, substitute the following subsection:
" '(2) The commission may accept the reference only if it considers that the proposed investigation would be in the public interest, taking into account the competition policy considerations (as set out in Schedule 1A).".
Page 8, line 29, proposed new section 19K, omit the section.
My amendments 1 to 6 address the issue of allocation of costs of inquiries. I will speak to all these amendments now. My amendments remove all references in the Bill to the concept of a self-funding referring authority - in other words, the requirement for people who request the commission to investigate a matter to have to pay for the commission's costs in undertaking the investigation. Let me first quote the Chief Minister's Committee report on this subject, which really says it all:
The Department also indicated that persons or agencies initiating an inquiry by the ICRC in competition policy matters would be required to meet the costs involved in the inquiry ... The committee is not attracted to this proposition. It would impose an economic penalty on those persons or agencies concerned enough to progress a matter with the ICRC. As importantly, the concept could well act as a disincentive for persons or agencies to progress with the ICRC matters of vital Territory interest or concern.
The committee would expect that the ICRC in accepting any reference for inquiry would do so on the basis of the public and/or the Territory interest. Accordingly, the committee does not consider it appropriate for costs involved to be charged to the person or agency which initiated the inquiry.
From the Government's response to the committee's report, one might think that they agreed with this comment. The response said:
Provision will be made for references from people or groups that are unable to fund the inquiry from their own resources, where there is a perceived public benefit and the ICRC is able to either fund the inquiry from its own resources or from funds agreed by the government for the purpose.
However, the Bill that the Government finally presented does not have this provision. The Government's position is quite contradictory. In the proposed new sections 19B and 19C it is clear that the commission can accept a reference for an inquiry only if it considers that there are legitimate grounds for the complaint and that the proposed investigation would be in the public interest. Obviously, the commission will investigate only matters that are in the public interest. It is therefore very unfair for the individual making the complaint, which may have implications for a whole industry, to have to pay for the inquiry, for all the reasons that the Chief Minister's Committee identified. For example, should the pool owner who objected on competitive neutrality grounds to the
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