Page 965 - Week 03 - Thursday, 10 April 2014

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MR DOSZPOT: Treasurer, in light of this report, what will you be doing to ensure a better relationship between both organisations? Why will you succeed this time when you have failed in the past?

MR BARR: I am not the manager of relations between regulators and those being regulated. I do not sit in every meeting. This process in independent.

Mr Smyth: Are you the minister?

MR BARR: If Mr Smyth wanted me to sit in every meeting, then we may as well do away with an Independent Competition and Regulatory Commission.

Mr Smyth: Are you the minister responsible?

MR BARR: I am the minister responsible under the legislation for the ICRC, and I am a shareholder in ACTEW under the Territory-owned Corporations Act. I have legislative responsibilities, but I am not a guidance counsellor for individuals’ relationships and I do not sit in every meeting between the regulator and the body being regulated. Nor should I and nor should any Treasurer. It would be a waste of time. I am not there to hold people’s hands when they need to do their jobs.

Mr Smyth: But you are there to make it work.

MR BARR: The process has worked. We have a determination. The legal framework allows for a review of that process. ACTEW are entitled under the legislation to seek that review. They are doing so in accordance with the law. That is paramount.

Multicultural affairs—National Multicultural Festival

MR WALL: My question is to the Minister for Multicultural Affairs. Minister, have any concerns been raised with you about contractors working for the government at this year’s Multicultural Festival? If so, which service providers?

MS BURCH: Can you repeat the first part of the question?

MR WALL: The first part of the question is: Minister, have any concerns been raised with you about contractors working for the government at the Multicultural Festival?

MS BURCH: Nothing comes to mind, Mr Wall; no.

MADAM SPEAKER: A supplementary question, Mr Wall.

MR WALL: The minister might like to take the answer to the last one on notice. As a supplementary, minister, what checks did your office, the directorate or the government as a whole undertake to ensure the appropriateness of contractors that worked at the Multicultural Festival?


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