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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 3 Hansard (7 March) . . Page.. 568 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

In legislation of this kind, there is a balance to be struck between conflicting rights. The Committee recognises that this is appropriately a matter for the Assembly.

So these pieces of legislation are both appropriate pieces of legislation to have before the Assembly. The report continues:

the committee -

Then the report goes on to talk on the one hand about the interests of those who contract with a government agency and their rights. It comments on the value of trade secrets, intellectual property and other information of commercial value, and information on the financial position or other sensitive business interests. It then talks about where a confidentiality clause may be necessary to give effect to an obligation of confidentiality that arises from a source other than the particular contract in question.

Mr Speaker, I wrote to Mr Stanhope, as he commented earlier, and said we ought to see whether we can work together and get the best possible outcome from the three pieces of legislation. I am still determined to do that.

I think there is a note of warning here for us and I think it is about retrospectivity; about setting a piece of legislation in place now, saying that from now on they are the rules and setting those rules without making it very clear to people what their rights are and what their responsibilities are. As the scrutiny of Bills committee says, this is rightly a matter for the Assembly. When we make clear what those rights are, I think we can have a clear and concise approach.

The difficulty I have is about taking away rights that people have been working by in the past. Certainly, the committee provides information for us to consider - not a definitive answer - about those rights of individuals in terms of property. It even refers to the United Nations Universal Declaration of Rights. Mr Speaker, whenever we deal with this sort of legislation we have to be incredibly careful. There clearly is an appropriate time to have confidentiality clauses to protect people's rights, even rights that are set out under that fundamental of all United Nations declarations, the first one, the Universal Declaration of Rights. We would all recognise that that is the most fundamental of those issues.

It seems to me, Mr Speaker, that what has happened in the past is the motivator to doing this. I had this in my platform prior to any of the matters relating to Bruce Stadium being raised because I have had some concerns for some years. Mr Berry will recall, I am sure, that I raised these concerns, although not in terms of retrospectivity. I accepted with the VITAB contracts, which still have not been made public, that the agreement was made. When Mr Berry said to this Assembly, "Why didn't you put a motion up, why didn't you do it then the way we did?", it was because I thought it was wrong. I thought there was

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