Page 5567 - Week 15 - Wednesday, 9 December 2009
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When he says, “Don’t put them in this bill because I do not want them scrutinised,” people should be very worried by that.
Mr Stanhope: No; I am just backing the Auditor-General.
MR SMYTH: That is a good thing. There he is—he always backs the Auditor-General! The Auditor-General might have a different view of that; the community certainly does.
They should be open to scrutiny. If this money is not spent in this manner, it may be money that comes back to the territory as part of a dividend. To hear the Chief Minister speak in the way that he spoke today—they always ran. When in opposition he ran on honest, open and accountable—more honest, more open, more accountable. But when you have a very simple accountability process put in place, when you have a bill to hold the government to account, the number one person standing in its way is always the Chief Minister.
MR SESELJA (Molonglo—Leader of the Opposition) (3:48): I thank the Greens for their support on this amendment. There is an odd sensitivity here from the government, particularly the Chief Minister, on the scrutiny of Actew and territory-owned corporations. It is unclear to me why the Chief Minister so vehemently wants to avoid scrutiny of Actew and territory-owned corporations in general. As has been put very clearly by Mr Rattenbury and Mr Smyth, in the end this is taxpayers’ money. In one form or another, we pay it. For the Chief Minister to try and claim it to be otherwise is ridiculous. We own these assets; the territory owns these assets.
We have a government that will not even tell us the basics about how much Actew executives are paid. They believe that that is something that should be kept secret. Now the argument comes from the Chief Minister that how they conduct their advertising and the scrutiny that we place on that advertising should also be above scrutiny, above the scrutiny of this Assembly.
The push back that we have had in negotiations from the government on this has been quite extraordinary. We have heard all sorts of theories about what would happen if this were to pass and how it would be challenged in the courts. It is ridiculous, but the vehemence of the response is worth reflecting on for a moment. Why is it that this government is so desperate? Why is it that this government is so desperate to avoid Actew being scrutinised in this area? There is an interesting position that has been put by the Chief Minister that Actew should not be scrutinised. But why is that?
We did see a lot of advertising in the lead-up to the election. We did see hundreds of thousands of dollars of public money spent by Actew on advertising and telling us how good things were with water. We know that the government have failed for many years to act on the issue. They have failed for many years to act on the issue. Then we have a Chief Minister who is now saying, “No, they should be able to continue to spend like that.” We know why. We know why there is a sensitivity, and we do not accept it. We do not accept the false arguments that have been put to us on this.
It is important, if we are going to pass this legislation, that it operates widely. It is important that it scrutinises government money. It is important that it protects
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