Page 2215 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 28 August 2007
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I hate to burden Hansard yet again, but let me look at last year’s estimates. The famous “dickhead” comment or “dickhead question of the week award” was an iconic activity. It was the subject of some discussion last week. We did not see any improvement on that behaviour last year against that comment that I just quoted. I refrain from quoting that yet again, but you would have thought it should have pulled Mr Hargreaves up. You would have thought that the Chief Minister might have brought him to heel, brought him to account. But no. We saw a repeat performance of Mr Hargreaves’s behaviour this year as well.
It is not just a refrain about MLAs and a few staff copping a hiding. When we look at the issue of ministers’ behaviour towards the community and stakeholders, the lack of consultation and the lack of transparency, there are a number of issues that must be raised. If the Chief Minister is really holding to his word that his will be an open and accountable government, we are not seeing it. We have not seen it demonstrated this year either.
I raise a couple of issues that demonstrate this. Firstly, let us look at the abolition of committees. In the municipality area we have seen the abolition of the traffic liaison committee, a liaison committee that had very important players attending, including the NRMA. We have seen the abolition of MACMA, the Ministerial Advisory Committee on Multicultural Affairs—going to emergency services. The bushfire council was not abolished, but we have seen its powers emasculated over a number of years.
Then we go to the Griffith library case. The Griffith library closed with no consultation. Who will ever forget Minister Hargreaves standing on the steps on that Saturday morning at Griffith library in its death throes—not the minister: the library was in its death throes—and proclaiming, “I did not bother to consult with you all because I knew what you would say. There was no need to consult with you. I knew what was in your mind. I have just made a decision to go ahead anyway.” That is really open and accountable government, Chief Minister!
Then we had the issue regarding the activist for the Griffith library community. That issue was the subject of a question without notice here last week. I am talking about the witch-hunt by the minister and his department against this particular activist—quite a decent woman: a passionate woman, a very sensible woman and a woman who had not abused anybody at all but had represented her community. Yet under questioning in this place last week we found the minister finally agreeing that he was able to access privacy issues about that particular woman regarding her library card status; and he got that through one of his library staff. What did we have here? “I thank you, comrades,” said the minister to the library assistant; “We can use this information to belittle this person.” That is how this government works: you get information on people and you use it to discredit them rather than admit that perhaps things might have been done better.
In its open and accountable approach, the government could say, “Well, look, we don’t always get it right; we do accept that there are weaknesses in the system. We will now go away and look at these things.” This would stop a lot of the angst. If there
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