Page 1508 - Week 04 - Thursday, 25 March 2010
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There will be a number of paragraphs in here that will amuse people. On page 33, paragraph 5.46 is important. It says:
The Committee also noted with interest that as of 18 February 2010 the project cost for the Cotter Dam was still listed as $145 million on the ACTEW Corporation website.
If you are putting out that number as the cost when the actual cost is well past $300 million, anybody in the public who read that and then heard a different number would be confused, and they would have a right to be confused. The government and its agencies must ensure that up-to-date information is on the websites at all times.
Let me go to recommendation 25. No 25 has been a standing issue for the Assembly for some time. The committee recommendation says:
The Committee recommends that the Treasurer report to the ACT Legislative Assembly, by the last sitting day in May, on the outcome of her correspondence with Territory-Owned Corporations regarding greater transparency of executive remuneration.
This is the issue of how much we are paying some of our senior public servants to run our territory-owned corporations. And are they public servants? It is an interesting question, but we are paying large amounts of money for these people to run organisations run by territory-owned corporations. If you are a shareholder of any big business and you go along, you can ask questions. We cannot ask questions and get answers. That needs to be resolved. It is an issue of accountability.
Recommendation 28 is a subject dear to my heart. I know it is a subject dear to Mr Coe’s heart in particular. The recommendation looks at the whole issue of the future of Young Achievement Australia. It says:
The Committee recommends that the Chief Minister report to the Committee—
it says “report to the committee”; I am sure it was meant to say “report to the Assembly”—
on the outcome of his discussion with the Federal Government in relation to future of Young Achievers Australia.
Young Achievement Australia has had its funding removed and as a consequence will fold. The Chief Minister said:
I am more than happy … I will be speaking with Senator Carr tomorrow and I will specifically raise YAA with him in conversation … directly.
The problem with that is that this project is a very important project. If we are going to be entrepreneurial, if we are going to diversify the ACT’s economy, the people who are going to do it in the future are the graduates of the Young Achievement Program. We should be doing everything we can to support young people in this territory, not take options away from them.
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