Page 218 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 10 December 2008
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We have heard the government use the issue of cabinet-in-confidence to defend its position. It has used the term “cabinet-in-confidence”. Cabinet-in-confidence is designed to protect free speech by allowing participants to speak freely in the cabinet. It is not to hide all of the documents that the government wants to hide. That is how it has used cabinet-in-confidence in this case.
There was a previous functional review, I believe, by a previous government. That review was made public. They could have tried to apply cabinet-in-confidence to that. They could have tried the same trick as has been applied by the Stanhope-Gallagher government but they chose not to. They put the functional review out to explain the rationale for the decisions that needed to be taken.
That would be the responsible course, so that people could actually examine what is in this functional review that is causing these issues, that is causing services to be cut back, that is causing taxes to increase. It is only reasonable that we should see these documents, that we should see this review. We know there has been, certainly, agreement amongst all of the non-government parties in this place on this issue. In fact, the words of this motion that I am moving today are the exact words, the identical words, that were used by Dr Deb Foskey, the Greens member in the previous Assembly, calling upon the ACT government to table the strategic and functional review.
I turn to this issue because I have seen the amendment circulated by the Greens. I have expressed concerns about amendments before—and I include this amendment—at a number of levels. One, I think it is a stark difference to the position that the Greens took in the last Assembly. In the last Assembly the Greens took the position that it was reasonable, despite all the objections put by the government, despite their hiding behind cabinet-in-confidence, that this should be tabled, that this review should be made public.
This amendment that has been circulated would suggest that the Greens are no longer committed to enforcing this on the government; they are no longer committed to voting for the government to release the functional review. And I would put it to my Greens colleagues that it will not reflect well when a party is prepared to vote for something when they know that it will have no impact, when they know that they do not have the numbers. In the last Assembly they voted for it. Dr Foskey knew that, even with getting together with the opposition, we were still going to fall one vote short.
This time we have a different scenario. We have a scenario where, if the Greens support this motion today, it will get up. We are committed to voting for it. If the Greens support it, there will be the numbers to get it through the Assembly. I would put to the Greens: what has changed since the last Assembly? Why is it no longer imperative that this functional review be tabled? And why would you vote for something when you know you cannot win a vote, and not vote for it when you know you can?
There would be some explaining for the Greens to do in relation to that if they do not support the motion in its current form. Remember: the words of this motion are the
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