Page 1395 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 6 April 2011
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words “ACT government publications” to (2)(d), as was suggested. I thank Ms Le Couteur for doing that in this way.
There is nothing in this motion that anyone who believes in open government can complain about or can quibble about. Without in any way anticipating the work of the Standing Committee on Justice and Community Safety in relation to freedom of information, I think that many of the sentiments that are expressed in this motion would have some resonance with the work that has been done by my colleagues and I in relation to the work on the Freedom of Information Act in the ACT, which will be tabled in this place tomorrow. So I think this is very timely and sets the scene for the work that I think this Assembly needs to do in relation to the formal operative provisions of the Freedom of Information Act.
I would like to speak only briefly because I think that the motion speaks for itself, but in congratulating Ms Le Couteur on and supporting her motion I draw on what is in paragraph (2). I note that the government is proposing to move an amendment. I do not know that it has been circulated, but if it is circulated and moved the Canberra Liberals will not be supporting it because it is a watering down of the very important notion put forward in Ms Le Couteur’s motion.
The Canberra Liberals have long held that we should have an approach to open government here. As does Mr Hanson, who was not here at the time but likes to dwell on this on a regular basis, we need to remember the tenor of the approach taken by the incoming Stanhope government to open government. When Mr Stanhope was the Leader of the Opposition, he went out on a number of occasions and made grandiose speeches about open government. In the almost 10 years of the Stanhope government we have seen very little evidence of the actions of the Stanhope government bearing fruit in that regard. And, seeing that we are quoting from Orwell and the Bible, by their fruits shall ye know them. When it comes to open government, the fruits of open government under the Stanhope government have provided very thin pickings indeed and have been very dried up and unproductive fruits.
This is borne out by the proposed amendments that were shown to my office this morning. The government looks into and investigates, rather than having definite commitments—like making a declaration of open government. Jon Stanhope was prepared to do this in opposition. Why is he now afraid to make a declaration of open government? Well might we ask. Paragraph (2)(d) states:
Adopt a presumption of information disclosure rather than confidentiality …
Jon Stanhope said when he was in opposition, when he was the opposition leader, “We will not hide behind confidentiality.” But in all manner of things in the last 10 years we have seen the government hide behind confidentiality. We see it with the members of this place trying to come to terms with the proposed changes to compulsory third-party insurance, with the Treasurer saying, “I cannot tell you that.” We are expected to make decisions about the insurance future of the people of the ACT with no information.
Ms Le Couteur’s motion talks about making appropriate datasets freely available. I have a quibble with this motion drawing out particular examples, because that means
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