Page 1965 - Week 07 - Thursday, 23 August 2007
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MR STEFANIAK: Jon, I will say this: I get on well with your government, but even with a nice government like the one we used to have, you would occasionally have people being a little bit worried about coming forward with information because of things that might happen to them in the workplace. Maybe it behoves us all to be a little bit more open to enable people actually to come forward without fear of retribution coming down on them. That is a very real fear with this government.
In terms of documentation, we are still waiting on you, Chief Minister, to provide the documents in relation to Kama which the estimates committee asked for.
Mr Stanhope: No, you are not.
MR STEFANIAK: You actually got them? Well, that is something. If you have supplied those, I am delighted. I have not got them, but if you have supplied those, Chief Minister—
Mr Stanhope: I have.
MR STEFANIAK: Good. I hope that is right. I will check that out. Thank you. I will take that as said and we will have a look at those. But there are a lot of other documents which we, the opposition and Dr Foskey, have called for, and rightly so, which have never been supplied. One example is the functional review.
This is a stunt. I say just get on with the job. If you have fixed up this glitch, fine. If we can actually give you some information which does not finger people, we will. But it does concern me that there are people out there who are scared to come forward. They are scared for their jobs and the opposition have a duty, just like a journalist has a duty not to reveal a source, to protect these people.
Rather than wasting time like this, it might be sensible if the minister had a chat to Mrs Burke and, without revealing any particular details, they might be able to sort the matter out. Why do we not try that one? This is a stunt. It should be treated as a stunt. The government should withdraw this motion and get on with the important job of the Assembly, which is actually dealing with the very important planning legislation.
DR FOSKEY (Molonglo) (4.03): I just want to speak briefly because I am very concerned about the time that we are using up and the fact that at the end of the day we are going to be quite resentful of having to stay here, perhaps into the early hours of the morning. I also want to say that while I support public interest disclosure, if that is indeed the case with these documents, I also feel that it may not be enough just to remove the names. There may be other matters which need removing as well.
I agree that this is a bit of a stunt, but I understand also that it is the result of a lot of frustration about these kinds of accusations being made that the government would allow these documents to have anything that might identify the person who has revealed them to be whited out or whatever. It is important. I would have thought that the government would want to know these things. I believe that it has the right to ask for the documents, but I believe it could be done in a way that absolutely protects anybody that is involved.
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