Page 4088 - Week 09 - Thursday, 26 August 2010

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However, on 25 May 2010, a year later, Mr Corbell said:

I have not yet received the final copy of that report.

And then, a week later, on ABC radio, he said:

… once we received the report …

It is important that ministers are accurate in what they tell the Assembly. Indeed, when Mr Stanhope tabled the ill-fated “infastucture report”, if you go to page 23 of the “infastucture report”, it says, under the heading “Emergency Services Infrastructure”:

Construction projects under way include a fit-for-purpose headquarters for Emergency Services and a new ESA training centre. The station relocation feasibility study—

which Mr Corbell may or may not have received, depending on which committee you are in—

will inform other future decision-making.

Apparently the government had it in 2009; they did not have it in 2010, but by the time we got to putting the “infastucture report” together they had it and were using it.

I have made some recommendations in my additional comments in the report. They are:

1. The Minister for Police and Emergency Services, Mr Corbell, be held to account against the Code of Conduct for Ministers for misleading various committees of the Legislative Assembly and, hence, the ACT Legislative Assembly.

2. The Minister for Police and Emergency Services, Mr Corbell, be requested to apologise to the Auditor-General, and to her staff, for making the derogatory comments that he did in evidence given to this Committee on 3 March 2010.

3. The Minister for Police and Emergency Services, Mr Corbell, be requested to correct the public record of the evidence that was the subject of matters raised by the Auditor-General in her letter to this Committee, of 18 March 2010.

These are important issues. The committees are representatives of the Assembly. They are established by the Assembly and they should be taken seriously by the minister.

The saga of the station relocation was interesting as well. The committee initially asked for the report and we were told that we could not have it because either it was or it was going to be cabinet in confidence. Then we requested it again. The chair wrote on behalf of the committee and we received a copy of the report. Then we asked whether the report is a private document for the committee or whether it is for publication. I do not believe we have got an answer to that letter yet. I have not seen the copy that the committee has received. I have seen bits of it from other sources.


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