Page 600 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 4 July 1989
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We have witnessed it here in this house where Ministers even declined to answer questions only a week ago, so I think that this Government needs to take very much to heart this question of the matter that the Chief Minister talks about in her few words to us today about open government, consultative government and the like. I have not seen much evidence of it here yet, and I hope that having now had the benefit of a summary of the Fitzgerald report this Government will rethink the words that it uses about open government and consultation and the like, and actually put some of it into effect so that we can see exactly what it is doing.
Another matter dealt with, according to the flimsy information that I have, is the independent commission against corruption. As I understand it, Mr Fitzgerald recommends against the establishment of such a body, which is very interesting since we have a reference to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts to examine the creation of such a body here. The proposal that such a body be examined is reasonable, but the Chief Minister now claims some credit for this, where she says that they supported this in principle and that she is delighted that the matter is being looked at by the Public Accounts Committee. But I submit, Mr Speaker, that if we were to go back and have a look at the Hansard where one of my colleagues put forward this proposal that such a committee should be established and look at what the members of the Government said on that occasion I think we would find that the words then do not coincide with what the Chief Minister is saying now.
There was not very much support from the Government for this inquiry or for the establishment of such a body. The proposal from my colleague Mr Collaery was accepted most reluctantly by the Government on that occasion. I am not too clear on just what the Government's attitude is on the matter at all, although it is quite clear that the commissioner, Mr Fitzgerald, does not consider that the establishment of an ICAC is necessarily the solution to corruption and fraud in public and other places.
So there are some matters, I think, in the report which are worth looking at, and I have just mentioned a few of them. I notice that the Canberra Times also has tended to summarise the main recommendations under about five or six headings. One of those is that the electoral system ought to be reviewed, and in talking about the electoral system they are talking about the boundaries.
We are considering at the moment a proposal from Mr Duby that certain matters affecting this territorial Government should be addressed, and one of them is the electoral system. I think that the Government needs to take that very seriously too, because when the ACT electoral system was being discussed before the Commonwealth came to its compromise which nobody seems to find very acceptable, it
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