Parliamentary Committees

Statutory Authorities Review Committee: Annual Report 2014-15

The Hon. G.A. KANDELAARS (16:35): I move:

That the report of the committee, 2014-15, be noted.

As members are aware, the Statutory Authorities Review Committee is a multipartite parliamentary standing committee whose five members are drawn solely from the Legislative Council. I am pleased to present the 63^rd report of the committee, the Annual Report of the Statutory Authorities Review Committee 2014-15. This report is the 19^th annual report of the committee and my second as Presiding Member.

It provides a summary of the committee's activity for 2014-15. During 2014-15, the committee met on 14 occasions, commenced an inquiry into the Environment Protection Agency management of contamination at Clovelly Park and Mitchell Park, and continued its inquiry into the State Procurement Board. It has also received the Treasurer's response to the inquiry into Funds SA's report recommendations. In April 2015 the committee, together with the Economic and Finance Committee, also hosted the 13^th Biennial Conference of the Australasian Council of Public Accounts Committees (ACPAC).

The Environment Protection Authority (EPA) is the primary independent regulator for environment protection in South Australia. On 28 July 2014, the committee resolved on its own motion to inquire into the EPA's management of the contamination at Clovelly Park and Mitchell Park, with particular reference to the assessment and management of the risks to public health by the EPA and related agencies. The committee received written submissions to the inquiry from six interested stakeholders, and during 2014-15 heard evidence from 28 witnesses. The inquiry's final report is expected to be completed shortly.

The inquiry into the State Procurement Board commenced in 2014-15, during which the committee heard from further witnesses. The inquiry's final report was tabled in December 2015. In April 2015, the Economic and Finance Committee and the Statutory Authorities Review Committee hosted the 13^th Biennial Conference of the Australasian Council of Australian Public Accounts Committees (ACPAC). The conference was held at Adelaide Oval and attended by close to 100 delegates from the Asia Pacific region. The conference theme was Inquiring Minds—Public Accountability, and the conference provided a broad platform for thought provoking conversations and debate in the areas in which public accounts committees operate.

In conclusion, I thank members of the committee—the Hon. Dennis Hood, the Hon. Rob Lucas, the Hon. Tung Ngo and the Hon. Stephen Wade—for their work on the committee for 2014-15. I look forward to continuing to work with them into the future, albeit I must say that we have just changed—

The Hon. R.I. Lucas: You've been sacked!

The Hon. G.A. KANDELAARS: No, I haven't been: the Hon. Tung Ngo has decided to leave the committee. I also wish to thank—

The Hon. R.I. Lucas: You've just been demoted.

The Hon. G.A. KANDELAARS: Well, that's for the committee to decide.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Hon. J.S.L. Dawkins): The honourable member should ignore the interjections.

The Hon. G.A. KANDELAARS: I will. I also wish to thank the committee staff members for their service, which has been invaluable over the past year.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (16:39): I rise to speak briefly to the noting of the report and to make a couple of brief points. I too thank the other members and the hardworking staff of the committee.

By way of interjection, unruly as it was, I did allude to the fact that I understand that the Hon. Mr Kandelaars is about to be sacked as chair of the Statutory Authorities Review Committee but, as he pointed out, he has not yet been sacked—we will have to decide that at the coming meeting. All I can say is that I will be doing all in my power to make sure he is sacked as the chair of that committee.

Whilst I cannot indicate the deliberative vote, certainly the Hon. Mr Gazzola comes highly recommended from the left of the Labor Party and, I am advised, well suited to the position of the chair of the Statutory Authorities Review Committee. He has already been furiously lobbying members for support to take over the position as chair of the Statutory Authorities Review Committee.

I want to make some brief comments, and the first is to note in the report the Treasurer's response to the inquiry into Funds SA and funds management in South Australia. I do not want to go through all the detail of that, but I want to acknowledge that, to the government's credit, it has acknowledged the work of the committee in relation to looking at funds management. I have to say that, without going into the detail, the report and the transcript will show that there was an unseemly stoush going on between Funds SA and the Motor Accident Commission at the time.

The committee made some recommendations in relation to a way forward with that issue. The government's response—which in the circumstances was fair enough—was that the government had made a separate decision in relation to the privatisation of the Motor Accident Commission, and that probably in and of itself resolves the need to reconcile the differences between the Motor Accident Commission and Funds SA in relation to their respective investment strategies. However, there were some other recommendations, and the government has obviously taken on board some of those and indicated a willingness to look at some of the others.

I want also to comment briefly on the other two reports. This is the 2014-15 annual report, but it does refer to the work the committee was doing and has now concluded in two other areas; one relates to the Environment Protection Authority and the other to the State Procurement Board. The only point I want to make—because the recommendations can be judged by those who want to look at the committee's report—is that it has been the experience before that one of the values of the work of the committee is that sometimes, through the passage of time and the focus on the work of a statutory authority, the evidence they give before a Statutory Authorities Review Committee leads to, during the passage of an action or review by the committee, changes being instituted by the statutory authority to its operations.

I do note that in relation to both the Environment Protection Authority and the State Procurement Board, during the time the committee was casting a spotlight on perhaps some of the inadequacies of the agencies' performance, the agency at least in part responded and made changes which the committee could then report on. In relation to the EPA, it did relate to some changes in terms of disclosure and its website and information that was provided which was being canvassed by the committee, and changes were implemented by the agency before the committee actually reported. Again, I think that is a testament to the worth of the committee's work, and valuable changes in terms of the operations of some of these agencies are achieved even prior to the formal reporting of the committee and a response by the government to the recommendations of the committee.

Finally, we have commenced work on the Motor Accident Commission terms of reference, but that is more in relation to the 2015-16 work of the Statutory Authorities Review Committee. With those brief comments, I support the noting of the report.

Motion carried.