The ACT government should consult the territory's Integrity Commission about whether it is in need of extra resources, an inquiry report has recommended.
The Legislative Assembly's standing committee on justice and community safety said it should seek advice from the Commission around whether it needed more resources to enable more detailed investigations.
The recommendation was made after ACT Integrity Commissioner Michael Adams QC told an annual reports inquiry that he may need to ask for extra funding if the Commission had to take on a large number of significant investigations.
Mr Adams was specifically referring to the possibility of needing to investigate issues with the territory's procurement processes, which he said were likely to be endemic.
"The committee is of the view that given that the Integrity Commission's costs were very small in comparison to the cost of some of the tenders that could be the subject to investigation, and the potential public interest in the investigations, there needed to be a mechanism to ensure that funds would be available if further resources were required for matters of sufficient priority," the report said.
The recommendation came after a separate inquiry from the public accounts committee concluded that the ACT Auditor-General should receive more funding.
The justice and community safety committee also recommended greater funding for the ACT Electoral Commission to run school and community education programs. The report noted there were two staff who delivered the programs but one had recently retired.
The report said: "The committee is of the view that the community should understand the importance of engaging in the electoral process and how it works. While the ACT Electoral Commission has put in place various programs to do this, it would benefit from more funding."
The report also recommended that the ACT government should advocate to the federal government for resource assistance due to recent anti-vaccine mandate protests.
It has already cost police $3.5 million to respond to protests which have been ongoing since December.
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