Legislative Council - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-04-29 Daily Xml

Contents

Parliamentary Committees

STATUTORY AUTHORITIES REVIEW COMMITTEE: ANNUAL REPORT

The Hon. B.V. FINNIGAN (17:20): I move:

That the report of the committee, 2007-08, be noted.

As members would be aware, I am no longer a member of the Statutory Authorities Review Committee, and I congratulate the Hon. Carmel Zollo on her election to the committee as presiding member. I thank all the honourable members with whom I had the pleasure to work on the committee over the period that I was a member. The current members are the Hon. Mr Hunter, who was there during the time that I was there from 2006, the Hon. Mr Stephens, the Hon. Mr Lucas and the Hon. Ms Bressington. I also thank the former members: the Hon. Michelle Lensink—

The Hon. Carmel Zollo interjecting:

The Hon. B.V. FINNIGAN: No; not in my time—and the Hon. Nick Xenophon with whom I also served on that committee. It has been a very interesting and challenging committee to be a member of, as you would know, Mr President. I have enjoyed the inquiries that we have undertaken. We had quite a number of meetings to receive oral evidence. In particular, in the past 12 months, we had a lot of hearings for the WorkCover inquiry and ongoing inquiries into land management.

The Hon. Mrs Zollo has, of course, tabled the inquiry into the Independent Gambling Authority and I will speak to that on another occasion. I again thank the honourable members with whom I worked on that committee. In particular, I thank the committee secretariat: Mr Hickery, the secretary; Mrs Baxter, the new research officer; Ms Cassidy, the former research officer; and Ms Gray who provides administrative assistance.

It has been a pleasure to serve on that committee, and I believe it has borne some fruit in its reports and investigations. Even if I do not always support the move to undertake certain inquiries, nonetheless it has been interesting to work on them. I hope the recommendations of the committee now and into the future will be of assistance. I commend the report to members.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. J.M. Gazzola.