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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2011-07-07 Daily Xml
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BURNSIDE COUNCIL

Mr GOLDSWORTHY (Kavel) (14:40): My question is to the Attorney-General. Does the Attorney-General agree with his Minister for State/Local Government Relations who said on radio today that the $1.5 million Burnside council inquiry was 'a waste of taxpayers' money'?

The Hon. J.R. RAU (Enfield—Deputy Premier, Attorney-General, Minister for Justice, Minister for Urban Development, Planning and the City of Adelaide, Minister for Tourism, Minister for Food Marketing) (14:41): I thank the honourable member for his question. The Burnside council saga goes back some time, as members would probably recall, and we had a dysfunctional council. The dysfunctional council was the subject of great concern and ultimately was the cause of the first exercise, as far as I am aware, of the powers under section 272 of the Local Government Act. There was an appointment of an investigator, the former auditor-general, and he conducted what could only be described as a very thorough investigation, and that investigation canvassed a number of matters and went for a bit of time because he did not want to leave any stone unturned.

Throughout the time that his investigation was going on, none of the people who subsequently went to the Supreme Court indicated that they had a problem with the terms of reference or anything else; that occurred after they received a confidential copy of the report for the purposes of them commenting on that confidential copy and, for reasons best known to some people, that was then distributed, and we have what has since unfolded in the Supreme Court.

The good news is—and the member for Kavel will probably feel better about this. The good news is this: first of all, there has been an election, and the good burghers of Burnside have gone down and voted—of course, they do it by post, but you know it's a metaphorical thing. They voted, and all of the people who were the subject of complaint and concern are no longer there—all of them gone. And—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.R. RAU: And the other really interesting thing about it is that the government, having made the commitment last year to look into the question of a public integrity commission and having announced in November last year a model for public consultation (that consultation going until 25 March this year)—and I note that some of the critics of that whole process did not bother to put in a submission, including—

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. J.R. RAU: —yes, it's true—including Dr Allan Perry from the University of Adelaide, who suddenly has become a critical of a document and a policy of which he is yet to become aware because we have not finished it, and including the opposition, in particular Mr Wade, who is constantly on the radio complaining about it, but of course he has not seen it either because it is not finished. But the process inasmuch as that refers to local government has been largely informed and substantially informed by all of the lessons we have learned out of Burnside. So, there we are. I think we have a great solution. We have all of the councillors, who were the subject—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.R. RAU: —of concern, and we have a great new reform coming with a public integrity commission which will address all of the issues of concern.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Mitchell.

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