BURNSIDE COUNCIL

The Hon. J.S. LEE (15:06): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for State/Local Government Relations a question about Burnside council.

Leave granted.

The Hon. J.S. LEE: The Eastern Courier Messenger of 19 July 2011 reported the minister as saying:

Handing this material to the Crown Solicitor's Office will ensure that the appropriate checks are being made so that the people of Burnside can be assured that there aren't any outstanding allegations left unaddressed following my decision to shut down the enquiry.'

My question to the minister is: given the minister's assurance to the people of Burnside to ensure that any outstanding allegations will not be left unaddressed, what action will the minister take to ensure that non-criminal breaches of other legislation are being investigated?

The Hon. R.P. WORTLEY (Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for State/Local Government Relations) (15:08): I thank the honourable member for her question. I have instructed the Crown Solicitor's Office to go through all the material, and if there is any hint of criminal activity we will then refer—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. J.S. LEE: I have a supplementary question arising—

The PRESIDENT: Hang about; we are just waiting. The Hon. Ms Bressington referred to this place this morning on radio as a 'monkey cage', and she might have got it right. It is behaving like one at the moment. Is the honourable minister going to finish his answer?

The Hon. R.P. WORTLEY: Thank you, Mr President. Arising out of the Supreme Court decision to render a number of the terms of reference invalid, it has created quite a number of legal impediments to completing the investigation, so I have instructed the Crown Solicitor's Office to go through all of the material and if there are any criminal allegations we will then refer them to the DPP, which is an independent body.

I have also had quite a number of meetings with the Local Government Association. We want to work together and we are going to work together to ensure that there are appropriate changes to the Local Government Act to give councils the appropriate tools to handle the sort of issues that occurred in the Burnside council in the very early days; to give them the tools to handle these issues themselves before they become big issues requiring taxpayers to spend millions of dollars investigating the issues.