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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 1 Hansard (13 December) . . Page.. 212 ..
MR CORBELL (continuing):
service. The tender of the Men's Accommodation and Crisis Service will enable applications for the provision of this service to be considered through an open and fair process and ensure that the most effective and appropriate provider is engaged.
I have to ask the question, Mr Speaker: what lessons has the Liberal Party learnt from the requirement to tender and from their failure to properly undertake tenders by a fair and transparent process when they were in government? Surely issues such as the management, or should I say mismanagement, of Bruce Stadium highlight the fact that ignoring due process causes problems and does not protect the public interest. Due process with proper checks and balances and an accountability mechanism is the best possible way to ensure that as a government and as a community we get the best possible result for taxpayers' funds.
I would like to draw members' attention to the ACT purchasing policy principles and guidelines developed by the previous government following the Sherman report into the findings of the coroner's report on the death of Katie Bender in the Canberra Hospital implosion. I will quote from the coroner's report, which is pertinent to this issue. The coroner said in relation to that inquiry:
Ministers and Members of the ACT Legislative Assembly are involved on a daily basis with public representations by sectional and individual interests. This can involve commercial interests in presenting credentials, or marketing the skills of their organisation to ministers and members. Any Ministerial involvement-
"any", I stress-
in the tender process may create a risk or perception that could undermine public confidence in the probity of the tender process.
The coroner concluded:
Accordingly, Ministers and Members of the Legislative Assembly, or their staff, should not be involved at all in the tender process or in determining the outcome.
What Mr Stefaniak is proposing today in his motion is a deliberate move by this Assembly to intervene in the tender process, and that is not, in this government's view, appropriate.
Mr Speaker, unfortunately the history of the men's and children's crisis service is, in some respects, another example of failure to follow an appropriate process. The first public hearing of the idea for a service from the government was in the form of a media release from Mr Stefaniak when he was minister for housing. At that time, Ms Tucker questioned Mr Stefaniak during question time in the Assembly about the process around the proposed funding to the Lone Fathers Association to operate the men's crisis service. Ms Tucker noted in the Assembly at the time that there had been no prior evaluation of need or model, and no tender process.
Mr Speaker, the government subsequently decided to provide funding for this service to the Lone Fathers Association, without any transparent decision-making process. The service was funded under a cloud of inappropriate process and we believe it is appropriate, as the new government, to set in train a process that is transparent. As
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