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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 5 Hansard (7 May) . . Page.. 1211 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

This confusion on the part of the Chief Minister was exacerbated by the spectacle of the Chief Minister sending counsel to the hearings on Christmas Eve, where an injunction was sought to prevent the tabling of the Gallop report and where, you would have to argue, any decent lawyer would be aware that the question of parliamentary privilege was at issue. The Chief Minister and Attorney-General instructed his counsel to say to the court that he did not oppose placing an injunction on the tabling of the report.

If the Chief Minister and Attorney-General had gone to the court and said squarely, "This report is public property. To prevent its tabling now would be a breach of parliamentary privilege. We oppose the granting of an injunction," I have no doubt that any court in this land would say, "Fair enough. The report will not receive an injunction." However, the fact that the Chief Minister and first law officer of the territory went to the Supreme Court and, in the very best construction, said nothing and did not oppose the granting of that injunction, added weight to the argument that the Supreme Court should injunct the report.

That was quite unacceptable. It was followed, in the days afterwards, by furious attempts by the Chief Minister to negotiate with the public servants concerned to make sure that the injunction would be removed by consensus. This would ensure that the Chief Minister was not embarrassed by having to go back to the court a second time, to say, "You recall, your honour, the injunction that I did not oppose last time? Now I do oppose it. Would you please lift the injunction?"

Thank goodness for his credibility that he did get agreement from those public servants and the injunction could be lifted by consensus. However, the fact remains that placing an injunction in the first place on the public release of a public report commissioned by this place was inappropriate. It was wrong. The Chief Minister should explain to this place why it was that he felt it was necessary to support the suppression of a report that he himself, just a matter of months before, had called for and had claimed ought to be made public at the first available opportunity.

This behaviour indicates that the government has struggled on this issue. This is one of the first issues this government has had to face, and it has stumbled and stumbled badly.

I will conclude by saying that it is important that we treat the entirety of this debate very seriously. With this report on the table, it is important that we now take seriously the recommendation that was made-to work with the disability sector to ensure that its views are well known.

If one thing has come out of this report, it is that the opinions of stakeholders and clients have not been sufficiently taken into account in the conduct of services today, and that the Assembly and the government, in particular, should commit themselves to embracing the spirit of these reforms. It may not mean the exact translation of each recommendation into action, but it should mean substantially honouring the spirit of this report with respect to the structure and nature of service delivery in the territory.

I look forward to that debate when the government's response to the report is on the table, but I hope it will be sooner than October of this year. I think the debate needs to happen in a context that provides for answers much sooner than that.

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