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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 3 Hansard (7 March) . . Page.. 575 ..
MR BERRY (continuing):
The motion that we passed here requiring the Chief Minister to come forward with those papers was consistent with that power. We draw in turn on the Commonwealth Constitution, section 49 of which provides that until otherwise declared by parliament, the Commonwealth Parliament is entitled to the same powers, privileges and immunities as were enjoyed by the House of Commons. There is no question that the House of Commons had the power at the time that the Constitution was enacted to require the documents to be tabled. So we go back to the House of Commons there. The Parliamentary Privileges Act was passed by the Commonwealth Parliament. The Commonwealth Parliament, Mr Speaker, would set out those particular provisions. There were some decisions in the court which were referred to in the advice which I will not go on about, but the advice concludes on page 3 as follows:
The result of the foregoing is that the Assembly resolution of 9 December 1999 requiring the Chief Minister to present the three Hirers Agreements (together with the SOCOG Agreement about which I am not asked to advise) to the Chair of the Committee was valid and enforceable in accordance with its terms and enabled the Committee (subject to compliance with the Standing Orders) to publish the Hirers Agreements if it saw fit to do so with absolute privilege attaching to such publication as far as any potential litigation against the Committee ... or the Assembly (or its members) is concerned.
So there we have absolute confirmation that what this Assembly did in requiring the Chief Minister to produce those papers was lawful. The Chief Minister denied us the opportunity to get our hands on those documents. She flew in the face of hundreds of years of tradition when representatives of the people called on the Government, the Executive, to produce papers in relation to matters which concerned the expenditure of money. Mr Speaker, this is outrageous.
We now see Mr Moore coming forward with legislation to try to take the heat off the Government. I note that Mr Osborne was going to do this. If I can be critical of his position, Mr Osborne was prepared to accept, and I dare say others were prepared to accept, that the Government could refuse this Assembly the provision of those documents.
Thankfully, due to the leadership shown by the Leader of the Opposition on the committee inquiring into these matters, we know have found ourselves in the situation where those hirers agreements are out in the open. Massive amounts of public expenditure were being kept secret by a secretive Executive, of which Mr Moore is a part, and by a secretive Chief Minister, and, dare I say it, by hirers who have probably been misled by the Government's attitude. I think they believed that they were able to sit on these if they wanted to, not knowing and not being informed by the Government that at any time the Assembly could call on the Government to produce these papers. If the Executive had taken the proper steps they would have been able to provide advice to these hirers which would have confirmed the validity of the motion which was passed and ignored by the Executive in relation to this matter. Those are the facts of the matter. That is a rough outline of how we found ourselves in this position in relation to these pieces of legislation which have found their way before the parliament.
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