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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 3 Hansard (7 March) . . Page.. 565 ..

MR HARGREAVES (continuing):

Mr Speaker, just as an aside, I would like to pay tribute to Mr Duncan's service on our scrutiny of Bills committee. It has been absolutely brilliant. It was pretty obvious to me that that would be the case, given that he is a Collingwood supporter. I would have thought that that naturally would be the case, and I am glad to see that that was so. We do wish him well. We would rather he did not go at all because I need all the support I can get, notwithstanding the support that I receive occasionally in the hallways from the Clerk, and a great football aficionado he is.

Mr Speaker, I would draw everybody's attention to the report. Look at the contradictions that have been pointed out by the learned legal adviser. I would suggest, Mr Speaker, that we look at them when we come to consider these pieces of legislation. I note also that our legal adviser pointed out a few things about Mr Stanhope's piece of legislation. Mr Moore's legislation comes in for a fair dinkum serve. I hope that Mr Moore looks upon the advice from the scrutiny of Bills committee in the light that we are all coming from the same position. I am certain that the motives of Mr Moore and Mr Stanhope are identical. Only the product is different.

MR STANHOPE (Leader of the Opposition): I seek leave to make a statement on the report.

Leave granted.

MR STANHOPE: I have just quickly read the report of the scrutiny of Bills committee on the two pieces of legislation that both Mr Osborne and Mr Hargreaves have mentioned and discussed. It is a comprehensive statement by the committee on the provisions in these two pieces of legislation introduced by me and by Mr Moore going to arrangements for the treatment of confidentiality clauses or commercial-in-confidence clauses in government contracts.

It is interesting, Mr Speaker, that in this one week we have had proposals for legislation from both the Government and the Opposition, and that Mr Osborne has foreshadowed an intention to deal with this same - - -

Mr Moore: The Bill is from me, not the Government.

MR STANHOPE: The Bill is from Mr Moore, not from the Government. I beg your pardon, Mr Moore. Mr Osborne also has foreshadowed an intention to deal with the subject. With that in mind, I note a comment that Mr Moore made to me about the need for the various approaches to be considered together. I will be interested to see the nature of Mr Osborne's proposals. The Assembly at some stage might like to give some consideration to how we might jointly deal with these three pieces of the legislation. That might be more sensible than dealing with them individually.

The fact of this approach by Mr Moore, Mr Osborne and me to the one issue gives some force to the view that a number of us around this place certainly have some concerns about the need for governments to be open and accountable and for their operations to be transparent.

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