Page 4641 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 31 October 2017
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the committee has based many of its recommendations, or variations thereof, on suggestions by inquiry participants.
As chair I also want to thank my fellow committee members for their time, their contributions and the collaborative way the committee has worked together on some very complex and challenging issues. Through these collaborative efforts we have been able to deliver a unanimous report which provides a clear path forward for the drafting of legislation to establish an ACIC in the territory.
I also want to express the committee’s thanks and my personal thanks to our committee secretary, Dr Andrea Cullen, who has done an exemplary job in coordinating the committee and compiling this report. I have heard Andrea highly spoken of many times in this place when committees are presenting their reports, and having now worked with her on this committee, I can only underline those earlier endorsements.
The committee considers that the establishment of an anti-corruption and integrity commission in the ACT will play an important role in investigating, exposing and preventing corruption. The report details the committee’s views concerning the design, form, functions and powers of an ACT ACIC. I commend the report to the Assembly.
MRS JONES (Murrumbidgee) (10.36): I rise to add some remarks to those made by Mr Rattenbury in this place on our report and inquiry into an independent integrity commission. This committee was set up with tripartisan support to find a mechanism to clear up some concerns regarding integrity and corruption and to restore faith in the systems of government in the ACT.
It is not a unique situation. This is something that has been faced by many states and countries. The first such commission was set up in Singapore some decades ago, with good outcomes regarding the method by which officials deal with each other and by which governments and officials operate. The mechanism allows for confusions, misunderstandings or, in fact, bad behaviour to be cleared up.
I particularly want to focus briefly on the travel that we undertook. The committee travelled to three states—Tasmania, Victoria and New South Wales—and received 33 submissions. The trips, although rightly a point of media interest, were in fact invaluable to the committee, and without them I do not believe we would have been able to achieve the level of detailed understanding of such a body that we have.
I would like to take a moment to acknowledge and thank the interstate groups that took the time to meet with us and generously gave our committee the benefit of their knowledge and understanding. I would like to thank the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission of Victoria, IBAC; the IBAC parliamentary committee and the Accountability and Oversight Committee of the Parliament of Victoria; the Tasmanian Integrity Commission; the Joint Standing Committee on Integrity of the Parliament of Tasmania; the New South Wales Law Enforcement Conduct Commission; the New South Wales Independent Commission Against Corruption; the Committee on the Ombudsman, the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission and the Crime Commission of the Parliament of New South Wales; the Committee on the
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