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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 11 Hansard (21 October) . . Page.. 3831 ..
MR STEFANIAK (continuing):
accountability for its decisions and actions. But it seems as though that time has passed. Ms Tucker's hypocrisy is exposed for what it is. It is fascinating to observe that she is strongly in favour of increasing the openness and accountability of government. Equally interesting is the gradual reduction of her interest in these important underpinnings of government. On 23 November 1995, during debate in the Assembly, Ms Tucker made the following comments in relation to Mrs Carnell:
... we heard her rhetoric about open and consultative government and about open budget processes ... Open budget processes do not have to lead to chaos that the older parties keep insisting they will.
On 23 May 1996 she said:
The Greens believe that, in the name of open and accountable government, this amendment should be supported ...
On 8 May 1997 she made a strong statement during debate on the budget. She said:
The overall lack of transparency in the budget documentation is a real problem when trying to determine what money is really going where.
Later in that same debate she said:
... the overall lack of transparency in the budget papers is still very concerning.
On 2 December 1997 she made the following comment:
Accountability and transparency for taxpayers' money is essential and parliamentary scrutiny is fundamental to that.
She went on to say that the FMA promotes:
...the highest standards of financial accountability to the Legislative Assembly and to the community and to enhance the transparency in budget decision making at all levels ...
It appears as though Ms Tucker's position and the position of the Greens on openness, accountability and transparency in the budgetary process were clear in all those statements. Ms Tucker is a strong supporter of accountability and of openness and transparency. What has changed since then? Ms Tucker now does not want to support an amendment that picks up an essential component of a package of amendments that was implemented by the Bracks Labor government in Victoria. I do not really think that Ms Tucker has told us why she does not choose to support this amendment. Why will she not support the opposition's proposed amendments?
I thought initially she was talking about increasing the resources that have been allocated to the Office of the Auditor-General, but in the next breath she said that that was okay and that it was desirable to increase resources for social and environmental issues. Why not do that today? If we need an allocation of additional resources it should be done for good fiscal and economic reasons. There are strong grounds for enhancing the
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