Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 13 Hansard (3 December) . . Page.. 4500 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

and this was not unreasonable as long as the requirements were up front so that business could decide for itself whether to deal with government. An important distinction needs to be made between releasing information about tenders not yet awarded and contracts that have been signed. As a general rule, once contracts have been signed the sensitivity of the information is significantly reduced.

The Greens are happy to support this Bill in principle, but would like greater work to be done on the issue of exemptions, particularly those relating to commercial-in-confidence material. The Greens would like to work with other members to pursue the issue in the next Assembly, either through an Assembly inquiry on a system of guidelines or through legislation.

MR MOORE (7.50): I support this very important piece of legislation. Rather than go through what my colleagues have said, I will simply support what they have said; but I want to raise a couple of other issues. This demonstrates how difficult it is to have drafted the sort of legislation that we seek to have drafted in this house sometimes. Mr Osborne discussed with me quite early in this Assembly, I must say, the fact that he was going to pursue "government in the sunshine". Was it "sunshine"?

Mr Osborne: Yes.

MR MOORE: Yes, "government in the sunshine" legislation. I thought that was a terrific idea. I saw some of his early drafts and early drafting concepts. I encouraged him greatly. I thought it was an excellent idea for more and more open government. After all, we knew that everybody here had made loud noises about being committed to open and consultative government. What has come out in the end, after a great deal of pressure in terms of the drafting of this legislation, is a rewrite of sections of the Act into much shorter and clearer language. Credit is due for that. Additionally, there are proposals for two kinds of exemptions, which I think is an excellent idea - the permanent and the limited term. The new short-term exemption of approximately a year recognises that there may be public interest grounds for confidentiality for a limited time. One can understand that.

Generally, Mr Speaker, governments spend time ensuring that things are done confidentially. It may not be the elected government that is so keen on this, but there is no doubt that bureaucracies are always very keen on it. It is amazing the number of times that people have said to me, "We cannot make this available because it is commercial-in-confidence". When I have pursued the matter, Chief Ministers or Ministers on both sides of this house when in government have said, "Okay, we will let you, provided you agree not to reveal any information. You can look at it". Every single time I have looked at something I have thought, "Why is anybody hiding this?". I have yet to see a reason why somebody is not making public some information on the issues that I have pursued. That is not to take away from the fact that there is privacy, which is an important issue, but we have privacy legislation in place to identify that. The real issue we have to deal with is the one that Ms Tucker raised - commercial-in-confidence. I think Mr Osborne would agree that we have not yet wrestled with that well enough, and his legislation does not yet wrestle with it well enough.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .