Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 7 Hansard (21 June) . . Page.. 2310 ..

MR MOORE: Why would they want to make it prospective and not retrospective? They are really only-

Mr Stanhope: Well, if we have a response to the committee's report we might know.

MR SPEAKER: Order! I warn you, Mr Stanhope.

MR MOORE: Why would we want to make it prospective and not retrospective? There can really only be one reason. It is because you do not want what is coming out to come out. You want to do it only in the future so that you can sanitise what you are doing now in order to make sure that the documents that are released are nicely sanitised documents.

Mr Berry: They will be, anyway. So?

MR MOORE: I hear someone say, "So?" That is the sort of openness. Those who advocate-

Mr Stanhope: What a nonsense. And you go to Mr Humphries' arguments.

MR SPEAKER: Do that again and I will name you.

MR MOORE: Those who are always accusing others of secrecy are now taking this kind of approach because they want to sanitise what they put out. Mr Stanhope completed his argument with the words: "This is ad hoc, pre-emptive and opportunistic." I think I have put the lie to each of those arguments. They simply aren't true.

Mr Speaker, the other issue raised that I think is rather important is that if we do go to the retrospective issue we infringe on people's rights. Largely, the argument has been that retrospectivity would infringe on people's rights. It is worth reading the scrutiny of bills committee report on the Executive Documents Release Bill which quotes the Australian Law Reform Commission. It argues that this bill should be seen as promoting the exercise of the rights and responsibilities of citizens in making informed choices. I might as well add that the scrutiny of bills committee also raised the issue that we want to make sure it does not interfere with the Freedom of Information Act. The amendment will ensure that that does not happen.

Mr Speaker, I think we have to ask ourselves one final question, because this has not been resolved yet to the best of my knowledge. Labor advocates a six-year prospective approach. The question then becomes when will we see the retrospective? Does the 30-year rule of the federal parliament apply to what has been done by, if you like, the Follett government, the Kaine government and the first Carnell government? Does the 30-year rule apply or do we never have retrospectivity? How do these documents that are not sanitised get out? I do not think that question has been answered.

As members will be aware, I have circulated a series of amendments which are a particular response to each of the issues that have been raised. When we get to the detail stage I will be tabling a supplementary explanatory memorandum to the Executive Documents Release Bill to make sure that people understand what we are doing. That was circulated earlier to make it easy for members to understand the legislation that is before us.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .