Page 2598 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 24 August 1993
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
MR CORNWELL: I asked a reasonable question of you as Attorney-General and you refused to answer the question on the ground of the public interest.
Madam Speaker, the biggest problem that this Opposition faces in relation to access to information is the absurd arrangement that this Government has imposed upon us of having to put every request for information through a Minister's office in order to get even the basic facts out of the departments. This is absolutely absurd. It ties up scarce resources. At least, Mr Connolly maintains that answering questions on notice ties up a great many resources. Why, therefore, should you waste time with simple questions that this Opposition may put to the department when not talking about policy issues? Members of this house are experienced enough to know that it is improper to go to a department and seek a decision, or a ruling, or comment upon what is clearly government policy. We would go direct to your offices in each of those cases. But when we have a simple request that does not involve policy we still have to go through Ministers' offices, and we sometimes wait several days to get a response.
Mr De Domenico: That is when the factions decide what to do.
MR CORNWELL: Perhaps that is when the factions decide, Mr De Domenico. I find this probably the greatest abuse and denial of information among all the examples that I have provided. It seems to me that the Government is using this simply as a matter of controlling the information that is coming out to opposition members. It is a means of finding out what they imagine that we are on about. I do not believe that that is the way the matter should be carried out and conducted. I do not believe that that is providing this Opposition with adequate information to ensure that your Government is accountable, and that is the name of the matter before you - accountability. You hide your accountability through FOI. You hide your accountability through blustering about resource implications. You hide behind the Privacy Act and hide behind what you believe is not in the public interest. Worst of all, by putting everything through your departments you are also denying us, I believe, the freedom that we are entitled to as opposition members representing the electorate and keeping your Government accountable.
MR BERRY (Minister for Health, Minister for Industrial Relations and Minister for Sport) (4.38): Madam Speaker, this has been raised as a matter of public importance, but it is an erroneous charge in the first place. This Government continually provides a level of information which I think the community is well satisfied with. We are not here to satisfy the Liberal Party. If we were to satisfy the Liberal Party we would not be here, but we are and we are staying. So we have a conflict, in the first place, in relation to whether we will please the Liberal Party or not. I hope that we do not please them. It seems to me that they have a job in life and it appears, up to this point, that being unhappy is their primary role. The issue of information very clearly is one that the community is interested in and they see a constant flow of information from this Government about a whole range of activities which they are concerned about. Just today there was an Auditor-General's report on visiting medical officers. The Auditor-General went in and discovered a whole heap of information about visiting medical officers.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .