Government Community Engagement

Mr KNOLL (Schubert) (14:52): My question is to the Acting Premier. Given the minister's answer earlier this week about the GOVchat session around justice reform, can the minister explain what happens to the contact information provided to the government by callers to the session?

Mr Bell: They harvest it.

The SPEAKER: The member for Mount Gambier may be right. The Deputy Premier.

The Hon. J.R. RAU (Enfield—Deputy Premier, Attorney-General, Minister for Justice Reform, Minister for Planning, Minister for Housing and Urban Development, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for Child Protection Reform) (14:52): I thank the member for his question. GOVchat was actually a very worthwhile exercise. Not all ministers have yet been through the GOVchat exercise, but I can say that some of my staff were a bit sceptical about it until they got in there and experienced it for themselves and it was very good. The basic principle is this—

Mr Marshall: Name one thing you learnt from it.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: The member for Schubert is a sincere asker of questions, that much I have worked out.

Mr Marshall: He's an 'asker'.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: He's an asker, that's right. It might help to explain the format. One is seated at a cubicle-type arrangement: it is a cubicle built for two. My fellow ministers would know this, as they have done it. It is a cubicle—

Mr GARDNER: If we are going to have four minutes of the Attorney-General—

The SPEAKER: Prolixity is not a point of order. Let's take it as read that this is four minutes of our life we are never going to get back. The Attorney.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I did actually speculate to myself one day during question time that question time was proof that Einstein's first theory of relativity was, in fact, flawed, because this is one place where space-time doesn't behave in the usual way and it can seem like an awfully long time when one is in here when the clock is only—anyway, can I get back to the cubicle?

There's a cubicle built for two, and we receive information that a call is coming through. The minister or the public servant, as it could be, or members of my staff (who were a bit reluctant to be involved, but got into the spirit of it pretty quickly, I have to say), take the phone call. There is a scribe who sits next to them who takes notes, and the purpose of taking those notes is to follow up.

Mr Marshall: Are they members of a political party?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Are they members of a political party? I haven't the faintest idea. The person who was sitting next to me was a public servant, and I have no idea whether she has any political affiliation at all—no idea. We take down these notes. Sometimes these people do not identify themselves, as they need not; sometimes they say, 'Hello, I'm George,' or whatever; sometimes they give their full name. Sometimes they want a call back; sometimes they don't. The treatment of these things—

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis: 'I'm Commissioner Burns; this is my view on the bikie legislation.'

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Well, the commissioner was actually there.

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis: Was he?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: He was. And they—

The SPEAKER: The Treasurer will not pursue his panto by way of interjection.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: At the end of the session, we then counted up the number of calls and classified them into different categories of inquiry. The purpose of that was to get some judgement as to what level of interest different topics had for those who had decided to call in. I think I took about 15 or so calls and, in my own experience, very few of the people I spoke to wished to have any follow-up. Those who did gave us some follow-up details, and I've asked those people in my department to help those people by following up with those details.

Mr KNOLL: A reluctant supplementary, Mr Speaker.

The SPEAKER: There's a supplementary?