Page 3004 - Week 08 - Thursday, 25 June 2009
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parliament and minority government, there is, quite properly, significant scrutiny of government decisions and plentiful opportunities and mechanisms for ministers to be held to account for their actions.
This government is happy to support those accountability processes, but it is not the same thing as opening up all decision-making processes. While I recognise and defend the Assembly’s right to hold the government accountable for the decisions it takes, non-executive members are, however, not part of the government. And as much as perhaps they might like to be part of our decision-making processes and desire these processes to be entirely open, it is not the way in which governments based on the Westminster conventions operate. Government must be allowed to govern, to take decisions, and not all the processes leading up to them can or indeed should be conducted in public. There are genuine public interest reasons why some of the government’s processes must be conducted behind closed doors. These are, perhaps, most evident in the areas of cabinet decision-making, commercial negotiations, industrial negotiations, legal matters and intergovernmental relations.
There is an expectation in the business community that government will treat certain information that it receives as commercial-in-confidence. This is true, for example, of the applications that are received from businesses for support under the ACT government programs such as innovation connect, trade connect and the investment facilitation program. It is also true for organisations seeking support under Australian government programs, such as the education investment fund and the cooperative research centres program. Such applications are typically provided with the requirement that they be treated as commercial-in-confidence, either through a specific statement to this effect or by seeking execution of a non-disclosure agreement or similar. In addition, in all other circumstances where commercial-in-confidence material is provided, officers are bound by the Public Sector Management Act 1994, which, inter alia, requires:
A public employee shall, in performing his or her duties, not disclose, without lawful authority—
• any information acquired by him or her as a consequence of his or her employment; or
• any information acquired by him or her from any document to which he or she has access as a consequence of his or her employment.
There is also a very reasonable expectation in the business community that certain negotiations with government will be treated in confidence. The government’s negotiations with the Little Company of Mary for the potential purchase of Calvary hospital is a good example in this regard. It has been highlighted on numerous occasions that in the initial stages of discussions regarding the potential sale of Calvary hospital, the Little Company of Mary requested that these discussions remain confidential because of the nature of the consultation that they—that is, the Little Company of Mary—had to pursue internally.
Madam Assistant Speaker, in broad government procurement there is often a requirement for certain information to be held in confidence. However, all parties involved in the ACT government procurement activities and any resultant contractual arrangements are expected to behave in accordance with the utmost good faith. The
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