Page 2604 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 24 August 1993
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
MR HUMPHRIES: If I could finish, Madam Speaker, there is no fee charged, apart from a $20 flat application fee and a small fee for each photocopy, 20c per photocopy. That is a fee that I think any member of this chamber would grasp with both hands, particularly when they want to get information from a recalcitrant government. That is not an unfair fee to charge; it is a very respectable fee.
The fact of life is that, when Matthew Abraham suggested that the rest of Australia followed a very different practice and the Minister denied that that was the case, the Minister was not accurately stating the facts as they stand. The fact of life is, as was well illustrated today, that there is a very different set of practices applied by other States in this country. Substantially they charge little or nothing to members of parliament. That is the case with other parliaments around this country, with a couple of exceptions - New South Wales and apparently the Commonwealth. In other cases, such as Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia and Queensland, effectively members of parliament get access to information from government at a very low rate or for nothing. Mr Connolly said, and I quote his words:
... we checked practice throughout Australia and all Governments have that policy.
Was that accurate or was it not? No, it was not accurate. Madam Speaker, this is information which, frankly, the Government should be brave enough to admit that it got wrong.
Madam Speaker, the Government's record is appalling and the Government's record has been inconsistent. Briefings have been refused, questions have not been answered on the floor of this Assembly and on notice, and FOI requests have been routinely blocked by this Government, particularly by Mr Wayne Berry. There has been exclusion by this Government from health system activities that have taken place from time to time. This Government provides no-one access to the health system, except itself. Madam Speaker, it is a disgraceful record. It indicates a government which is besieged and beleaguered, and it deserves to be condemned because ultimately the people who pay the price for that kind of attitude are the public of this Territory.
I might point out that Mr Berry just does not realise that the information that we bring to this Assembly on many occasions does not come from our own minds. It comes because people in this Territory come to us and say, "We want to know what is going on. Will you help us find out what is going on?". Those are the people who are denied access to information just as often as we, as members of parliament, are denied access to information, and that is disgraceful. The job of a good government is to make sure that its record can be scrutinised by all people who have legitimate questions to ask about the operation of that government. People do not get that from the ACT Labor Government. They get a government which is secretive and deceptive, and that, Madam Speaker, is something which the Government will have to take to the next election.
MADAM SPEAKER: The discussion has concluded.
Sitting suspended from 4.58 to 8.00 pm
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .