BURNSIDE COUNCIL

The Hon. S.G. WADE (14:45): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for State/Local Government Relations a question about the Burnside council.

Leave granted.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: On 2 July last year the minister stated that, in relation to Burnside council, she found it:

...very disappointing that the council has had a considerable amount of time to manage and deal with their internal problems and they've failed to do that so they've in fact failed their ratepayers and they've really discredited local government.

Even though there had been concerns about Burnside council before the minister was appointed to the local government portfolio, it took the minister more than six months—until 22 July—to act and launch a formal investigation under Mr Ken MacPherson. A week after the inquiry was launched, she described the council as nothing short of a disgrace. Despite commitments to provide a public report by October last year, on 13 October 2009 the minister extended the deadline for the report of the investigation to January this year.

On 9 February, the minister further delayed the report for another month, with a new deadline set for 'at least a month's time'. On 31 March the minister released yet another statement indicating that the report was not yet ready and that those mentioned in the report would be given the opportunity to respond to any allegation made against them. The minister has claimed that it is 'in everyone's interest to complete this as expeditiously as possible', yet what the minister claimed would be a three month investigation is now approaching a year long investigation. My questions are:

1. Will the minister confirm that the opportunity for persons referred to in the investigation report to consider their responses to the report before it is made public has commenced?

2. Why has the investigation been delayed more than three times given the minister's previous statements of the need for an expeditious investigation?

3. When will the report be completed, and will the minister reaffirm her commitment to table the report when it is completed?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO (Minister for State/Local Government Relations, Minister for the Status of Women, Minister for Consumer Affairs, Minister for Government Enterprises, Minister for the City of Adelaide) (14:47): The answers to all the honourable member's questions are already firmly on record. I have given a number of statements in this place outlining the reasons behind the delays in the report, but, as the honourable member has obviously failed to grasp the understanding of those, I am happy to go through it again.

The honourable member knows that, in July 2009, I appointed Ken MacPherson to conduct an independent investigation into the conduct of the Burnside council.

The Hon. J.S.L. Dawkins: How many months ago was that?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: I am asked, 'How many months is that?' How dumb is that? July last year—can't they work it out on their fingers? Get your fingers out and work it out for yourselves. It is not like it—

The Hon. J.S.L. Dawkins: How long does it take?

The PRESIDENT: Order! The minister is answering the question. Be patient.

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: I have answered this so many times, but, anyway, I am happy to waste the time of members answering it again. In terms of the complaints (and I have already put this on record) around Burnside council, we received complaints for some time over a number of years. Each of those complaints that I received during my time—and I know that the Hon. Jennifer Rankine received some—was investigated by our unit and was assessed as not being substantiated enough to warrant a full-blown investigation. As I have put on the record before, it was not until the CEO resigned—I think, in July 2009—and made a public statement about the workplace being unsafe that I was provided with the trigger to conduct a fully-blown investigation, which I did.

The time frame given for the investigator was around three months, and Mr Ken MacPherson agreed to conduct it. He requested further time, given that at the time he believed that three months would be enough. He then had time to scope the investigation and, as I have already reported in this place before, given that a decision was made to make the submissions to the investigator open to the public—that it was not just an investigation of council, councillors and council staff, as many of these investigations are—this was open to the broad public.

Notices were put in newspapers, and the general public were invited to be involved and to submit issues of concern, so it was opened up very broadly, and it was not until the investigator had an opportunity to receive the responses from those expressions of interest that he was able to scope it.

He came back to me and said, 'Minister, this is clearly the level of interest in this, the number of interviews that are going to be done, and the number of submissions that I'm likely to receive will warrant an extension of time.' It was a reasonable request and, in the interests of providing greater scope and input into the evidence received, I agreed to that.

Further work was done, and the investigator came back to me and reported again. I think I made a ministerial statement on this; if not, I am certainly on record. Very close to the end of the extension of time, the investigator identified additional new evidence which was brought to his attention at the last minute and which had a significant bearing on the investigation.

The investigator informed me that it would require him to go back and re-interview a number of the witnesses, that it was of a very serious nature and that it would require going back and revisiting some of that important work. Clearly, it was again in the public interest to allow him a further extension of time to do that.

I have been advised that he is now in the final stage of the report, which is a natural justice stage where I understand that those people who the investigator has findings against and who are likely to be named in the report are given an opportunity to hear the findings the investigator wishes to put in the report and to respond to those to the investigator.

My understanding is that that is the phase that is in place now. How long it will take, I don't know. It obviously will depend on the access to individuals and the length of time individuals need to respond to that; some might even want legal counsel in relation to that. Who knows? The investigator is not able to give me a clear indication as to how long that will take, so I do not know how long it will take.

I believe that the most important factor in this is, first, that a thorough, complete and reliable investigation is conducted so that whatever findings come out of it cannot be challenged, or if we are challenged they cannot be upheld, and that it is a report of high integrity so that we do not end up spending the next five years in court fighting over legalities.

It is most important that the integrity of this report is upheld and that the investigator is allowed to get on and do the job that he believes and assesses to be necessary and to do it in a competent, reliable and thorough way. For any of us, particularly for me as minister, to interfere with that process would be most improper and irresponsible. Although I personally am incredibly frustrated, as I know others are, at the length of time that this has taken, I believe that it is in the public interest for this matter to be resolved, and I look forward to receiving the investigator's report and finalising these matters once and for all.