Page 3053 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 17 November 1992
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But fundamental to our role in this place is our role as representatives of our electors, the people who put us in this place. We see it as our role to protect their needs and interests, defined as broadly as possible. That is a role common to all of us - Ministers, backbenchers, members of the Government, members of the Opposition. But critical to that role is the question of the access we have, whether as backbenchers of the Government or as members of the Opposition or those on cross benches, to decision makers. That is critical to our performance as members of the Assembly.
Mr Berry: That is us.
MR HUMPHRIES: Not just you, no. It means Ministers and bureaucrats, because you do not make all the decisions in the Government; you delegate.
Mr Connolly: We are responsible for their decisions.
MR HUMPHRIES: You are responsible for some decisions, but you do not make them all. You make some; you delegate some to public servants. It is essential that we have good access to the decision makers in order to be able to play our role as members of this Assembly.
There are huge resources given to this Assembly to perform those roles. We have cars; we have telephones; we have staff. They are all designed to provide us with a capacity to play that role as conduits between decision makers and our constituents, but we are inhibited in playing that role by the standards of this Government. Unquestionably, the policy of this Government and of the ACT administration it administers has changed in recent months in response to that. Those opposite say that this is nonsense, that there has been no restriction on the access by members on this side of the chamber to decision making. I say, Madam Speaker, that that is nonsense. Mr Wood said, "We are doing the same thing you used to do". That is not so. The Chief Minister quoted earlier today from the policy which was circulated at the time of the Alliance Government and which she says is the policy of her Government. It said, and I quote it again:
Requests for information are usually made through the responsible Minister, but it is recognised that direct approaches to officials for routine factual information ... on constituency matters, are traditional and appropriate.
As members are well aware, a minute which circulated in the Attorney-General's Department earlier this year said something quite different.
Mr Connolly: In a central policy department. The Government Law Office is a big constituency area!
MR HUMPHRIES: I will come to that. It said something quite different, namely:
requests to officers of the ACT Government Service ... from non-Executive Members of the Legislative Assembly for information ... should be directed to the office of the relevant Minister;
There is no distinction between those two cases referred to in the previous minute, no distinction between routine factual information on constituency matters and other things. Everything is in the same basket. What that
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