Ombudsman to investigate Coe complaint

The Office of the ACT Ombudsman will investigate aspects of a complaint made by Mr Alistair Coe MLA regarding the administration of Discretionary Office Allowance (DOA) within the ACT Legislative Assembly.

Mr Coe’s complaint encompasses procedures and decisions made within the Assembly that include actions by elected MLAs as well as the Speaker, MLAs’ staff, and by officers of the Office of the Legislative Assembly (formerly the Secretariat). Because of this, we needed to resolve the question of the boundary of our jurisdiction as it applies to the circumstances raised in Mr Coe’s complaint before formally commencing an investigation. In brief:

• the Ombudsman does not have jurisdiction to investigate the actions of MLAs, Ministers, the Speaker of the Assembly or MLAs’ staff
• the Ombudsman does have jurisdiction to investigate the administrative actions of the Office of the Legislative Assembly (formerly the Secretariat).

The investigation will examine the advice, actions and decisions made by the Clerk of the Assembly and any subordinate officers in relation to determining the eligibility of DOA in the specific instances Mr Coe raised in his complaint.

A particular focus of the investigation will be whether the Office of the Legislative Assembly had reasonably followed the Members’ Guide in performing its administrative duties.

The Members’ Guide is a document that has been approved by the ACT Legislative Assembly, so its content is outside the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction.

The investigation will be conducted in private.

Media contact: Fiona Skivington 0423 845 160

21 August 2012