Page 365 - Week 01 - Thursday, 11 December 2008
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insisting the process was arm’s length and there was no improper involvement or influence by any government agency.
In June 2008, a no-confidence motion was moved that saw protestors outside the building and the Canberra Liberals using every means to protect the community and fix the mess created by the handling of the project by the government. It must be noted that every non-government member of the Assembly agreed that Jon Stanhope had misled the Assembly during that vote. This action led to the project being significantly altered by separating the power plant from the data centre proposal. However, the site selection remained.
By July, the public accounts committee requested that the Auditor-General look at the process, which the auditor agreed to conduct on 2 August. As we all know, the process included recalling the estimates committee and a no-confidence motion in the Chief Minister. At both, the Chief Minister gave long, detailed and very aggressive testimony as to how this process was sound, it was at arm’s length, and that the parliament and stakeholders in the community were fully involved and informed. The Auditor-General’s report shows different.
It is important, though, as we debate the merits of this bill, that we consider the truly independent report from our Auditor-General and what it says about this project. The report shows that it was a flawed process. I quote from the report:
Government agencies complied with the existing Government processes … These processes, however, were not sufficiently robust to give confidence that the public interest was fully taken into account … The Chief Minister’s department is responsible for coordination and facilitation of major projects for community and business development in the ACT. However, no formal policies or procedures for dealing with strategic projects existed within the Chief Minister’s Department.
Further:
CMD does not have a clear definition of what constitutes a strategic project … The lack of a defined and sound process to facilitate such projects can raise risks such as perceptions of lack of fairness and accountability … A better process of site selection was carried out in 2002 …
The other finding of the Auditor-General’s report was that the government was not at arm’s length. Government agencies made it clear to ActewAGL that this site was not the government’s preferred option because of the planned industrial land release of that area. CMD took on the lead role in facilitating this project in response to this urgency, consistent with the government’s strong support and commitment to this project. It was hardly arm’s length. And the auditor goes on:
Government agencies did not always exercise care to ensure arm’s length dealings with ActewAGL, and its consultants.
It is this lack of an arm’s length process that we believe led to many of the flaws and mistakes in this process. It was not being at arm’s length that led CMD, on behalf of the Chief Minister, to reject the advice of other government agencies in favour of the
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