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Sunday 21 September 2003, Media Release

MAJOR FLAWS IN INVESTIGATOR'S REPORT

The New South Wales Aboriginal Land Council has serious concerns about a number of key recommendations in the report of the State Government appointed investigator into the affairs of the Council.

This follows a preliminary analysis by Council of the 300-plus page report which was tabled in State Parliament last week.

The analysis has revealed major flaws and discrepancies in substantive material in the report which has been relied upon by the investigator to support his recommendation to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs that he sack the Council and appoint an administrator to take over all of its functions. Council has been given 28 days to respond to the report.

We intend to write to the Minister pointing out our concerns about this aspect of the report and the material the investigator relied upon to support it.

We will do so as we continue a detailed analysis of the document and develop a full formal written response within the deadline set by the Minister.

NSWALC anticipates it will accept the majority of the report's recommendations.

The facts are we have already put the majority of governance policies and procedures in place which are recommended in the report.

We also believe, on the basis of our preliminary analysis, that the Minister would not have tabled the report of the investigator to the Parliament in its current form had he accepted our invitation to allow us to comment on a draft before it was completed.

The investigator also refused a request to allow us to comment on a draft of his report before it was transmitted to the Government.

NSWALC has also written to the Independent Commission Against Corruption seeking an early meeting with the anti-corruption body following the referral of the investigator's report to ICAC by the Minister.

The meeting would give us an opportunity to provide ICAC with a full briefing on our new governance polices and procedures given the report's silence on them.

It would also allow us to provide ICAC with our preliminary analysis of the investigator's report.

It is our considered view we can satisfy any objective test on our ability to continue to control our own affairs.

NSWALC will lodge a full and formal response to the report of the investigator once it has completed a thorough analysis of the report.

We will also be requesting our response be formally tabled in State Parliament when it resumes in the middle of October.

We are confident our response will dispel any suggestion we have ignored criticisms of our governance procedures.

We will also take the opportunity our formal response provides to flatly reject media reports which claim we have "scrambled," to get our house in order and have done "too little, too late," to avoid further intervention by the State Government.

Les Trindall
Chairperson
September 21, 2003