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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 8 Hansard (27 June) . . Page.. 2355 ..

MR MOORE (6.10): Mr Speaker, in the interests of the Territory and the service, I am delighted that Ms Tucker has brought this to the attention of the Assembly. In the interests of the Territory and the service, we should not be keeping such things secret. The whole idea of secret deals being done and not being reported to the Assembly really does need to be questioned. What we see is a change in tone in terms of what the Chief Minister is suggesting. Such issues are appropriately areas which the Assembly can understand and deal with; information must be put before the Assembly. Indeed, Mr Speaker, Mr Berry often comes to the crossbenches and says, "There is information that the Government has that we ought to see. What do you think?". Mr Osborne and I usually reply with the same word, "Sunshine". Sometimes I make a mistake and say, "Sunlight", which he thinks is a soap, but I grew up in South Australia where it was called Velvet. The situation here is that there should be a sunshine provision. We should be able to see what is going on.

The whole notion of commercial-in-confidence for an authority operating on behalf of the Territory and on behalf of the people really needs to be tested. I believe that is the case with this appropriate amendment that Ms Tucker has put up. I have just drawn to her attention that she seems to have missed the same provision at paragraph 8(3)(b). She may well move the same amendment to that paragraph. No doubt she will speak about that if she rises to speak a second time to this amendment, which, of course, she is entitled to do.

Mr Speaker, it seems to me that we have the opportunity here to allow the Chief Minister to go ahead and establish her Health and Community Care Service, but the idea of then giving it powers that mean that we cannot see what is going on, particularly as far as financial matters go, is unacceptable. Mrs Carnell, in speaking to this, says, "That is okay; the Auditor-General will keep an eye on us". Yes, we know that the Auditor-General has a responsibility, and probably all of us believe that the Auditor-General carries out that responsibility quite effectively and very thoroughly, but, of course, within the budget and within the time that he has. Therefore this Assembly should never hand over its watchdog role as far as these sorts of matters go. We have an important role to play in terms of this. Delegating to a Minister that kind of power to be able to bury things in secret compartments is simply not acceptable. This is a good amendment and it improves this legislation.

MR OSBORNE (6.14): How quickly the coalition dissolved. Look at it. The Green-Liberal coalition has shattered, fallen apart at the seams, so quickly. Mr Speaker, I rise briefly to echo the words of Mr Moore. We over here work on the philosophy that there should be no secrets when it comes to matters which are of interest to the people.

Mr Kaine: Have you joined the Michael Moore party?

MR OSBORNE: Oh no. Certainly not. In anticipation of my freedom of information Bill, I can do nothing but support this very sensible amendment from Ms Tucker. There should be more of it, I think, in the way that governments and Assemblies operate.

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