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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2010-11-25 Daily Xml
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PUBLIC INTEGRITY

Mrs GERAGHTY (Torrens) (14:24): My question Is to the Attorney-General. Can the Attorney-General inform the house about the discussion paper on integrity structures in South Australia and how he will progress this review?

The Hon. J.R. RAU (Enfield—Attorney-General, Minister for Justice, Minister for Tourism) (14:25): I thank the honourable member for her question.

Mr Williams interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! We will listen to the Attorney-General.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: On 6 May this year I announced to the parliament that we would be pursuing the development of a national body to look at anticorruption through SCAG. As all of us know, subsequently it came to pass that other Attorneys were not of the same mind. At that time we decided to proceed with a review of our own domestic structures with a view to seeing what could be done to improve those.

The review, which has been conducted since that time, has culminated in a report, which was distributed following the ministerial statement made by the Premier. In the course of that review there were consultations with a number of parties inside and outside of government, all of whom were asked to express views about their opinions of and difficulties with, if any, the existing public integrity structures in South Australia.

I am able to report that many of the comments that were made to the review were quite positive. However, because of the fact that there were clearly some areas that could have been improved, the review focused on dealing with those identified matters. One matter that came through very clearly was that members of the public are confused as to where they should go with a complaint. There are any number of people who do not understand whether a matter should properly go to the Ombudsman, or to the Police Complaints Authority, or to the Anti-Corruption Branch, or where it should go. So, it has been—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.R. RAU: The first of the major recommendations—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.R. RAU: The first of the major recommendations of the review is to create a front-office for the receipt and processing of all complaints. This office would operate in such a way as to—I think the term used is triage—to distribute those complaints to the appropriate agency. Members might be interested to know that a large percentage of the Ombudsman's time presently is spent sorting out complaints which should properly be with the Ombudsman from those that should not be there at all.

The second element in the package, which came again through the recommendations of the people with whom we had consulted, was that a number of existing agencies could be improved. When members have an opportunity to read the review document, they will see that the position of the Ombudsman and the position of the Police Complaints Authority have both been the subject of recommendations to enhance and to make more effective the powers that are reposed in those two existing bodies.

In addition to that, some additional power in the nature of oversight of local government is being conferred upon the Auditor-General. That is a matter that I know the member for Fisher has been very concerned about for some years, and I hope he reads the report with some interest, because he may see some of his own long held opinions being echoed in some of the recommendations.

The final element in the proposal, as the Premier mentioned, is the establishment of a commissioner for public integrity, whose primary role is the oversight of the existing organisations, a reporting function to this parliament, and an investigative function in the event of any of the other agencies failing or in some way falling short of their statutory requirements, or in the event of some conflict in relation to police investigations. I will not labour the detail of that, but I would invite members to read and consider it.

The process from here is that this paper is now out for public consultation. It is available on the Attorney-General's website. Members leaving the chamber today will have copies in their boxes, and I would encourage them all to have a look at them. The consultation period, given the fact that we have the Christmas break, has been extended to 25 March 2011. I would encourage members opposite that, if they have views—however at odds they might be, however different they might be—their contributions are welcome. In fact, all of the agencies that are affected by the recommendations have already been consulted about them and they will obviously be welcome to make further contributions by way of recommendations or suggestions.

The intention is that following the close of those, on 25 March next year, a final report to cabinet will be prepared, which will then result in a bill. As the Premier said, it is our expectation that that would be before this parliament and dealt with before the end of next year.

Finally, I commend all of those people who made contributions to the review. All of them were very well considered, and many of them took the time to come and speak to me personally in order to further explain or help me understand their points of view. I thank the officers of my department, who worked very hard on this project. I would like to thank my personal staff, and I would also like to thank the Hon. Bernard Finnigan of the other place, who also did a tremendous amount of work, which was of great assistance.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I commend those members opposite, in particular, to include the review as part of their Christmas reading.

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