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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 7 Hansard (26 June) . . Page.. 2628 ..
MS TUCKER
(continuing):On this issue, the Assembly has accepted that there are reasons for claiming confidentiality. How we should deal with that in terms of contracts has been the subject of a long saga over the years. I notice Mr Moore is present in the gallery. When he was a member of the Assembly, he was working strongly with the Greens to the use of commercial-in-confidence claims used by the previous Liberal government.
We ended up with an act which enables the Auditor-General to keep a check when confidentiality clauses are claimed and used. That is something of which we are all well aware and the Auditor-General reports on it. Basically, it means that departments have to account for claims that a particular issue is confidential. That is the way that we have, as an Assembly, tried to maintain accountability in terms of the use of confidentiality clauses.
I heard Mrs Dunne say that she would like to see this subject referred to the Administration and Procedure Committee. I do not have a problem with that, but we are actually dealing with a particular issue tonight. The particular issue is about calling on each of us tonight to make a judgment on how the public interest is best served. I was also not prepared to support Mr Corbell's previous amendment, which was asking members to sign on to a statement that they would not disclose any of the information, even though members had not read it and could not possibly know whether it would or would not be in the public interest to disclose it. So I also would not have supported that amendment.
The amendment that has been put now, from listening to the debate so far, seems to me to be a proper process because, as with the Auditor-General and contracts, it is one that allows advice to be given. It is a slightly different process, but it is still about bringing some accountability into the process. As I have said already, we know that there can be a public interest argument for not releasing particular documents.
My amendment was about members having the right to see this legal advice and do so it in the office of the clerk, which we have done before on a number of occasions. I recall that at one point there was an offer by a minister to members to look at a particular document in his office. I do not know whether that ended up being changed to the clerk's office, but I do recall that. From memory, that involved Mr Moore as well.
I know that this issue has come up before and there have been attempts by governments to try to deal with the rights of members of the Assembly against the need for confidentiality in certain circumstances. I see this amendment as ensuring that each member of the Assembly, after they have looked at this advice, will have access to impartial advice on the legal implications of release of the information. For me, that is a reasonable thing to do. I will continue to listen to the debate, but I have not heard anything from Mrs Dunne to persuade me to think that this amendment is not a reasonable compromise.
MR HARGREAVES
(8.17): Mr Speaker, I think that this amendment from the minister is evidence of good faith. I am reading from this amendment that the minister is saying, "Okay, you have made a point. You want to have a look at it. That's fine."But he is also saying that there is a danger of the contents of legal advice regarding the commercial activity being leaked as there is potential for legal action which may have some claim on
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