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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 3 Hansard (9 March) . . Page.. 744 ..
MR MOORE (Minister for Health and Community Care) (11.48): Mr Speaker, I present the Executive Documents Release Bill 2000, together with its explanatory memorandum
Title read by Clerk.
MR MOORE: I move:
That this Bill be agreed to in principle.
Mr Speaker, I am once again pleased to present this Assembly with a Bill to enhance the laws of the Territory on open government. The ACT is a young jurisdiction, and its Executive has existed for just under 11 years. As such, there are some historical issues which have not yet needed attention. One of these is the release, after a period of time, of the Cabinet papers of past governments.
Members will be aware of the Commonwealth 30-year rule, under which the papers, notes and minutes of the Federal Cabinet are released after 30 years, on 1 January each year. They provide the Australian political media with a welcome pile of news stories for the first few days of January, when most politicians are on leave. But the release of documents is an important part of our democracy. Not only does it allow for the proper historical examination of what governments did, but it ensures that Cabinets do not operate in a climate where they exercise public decision-making without any fear of one day being held to account. Mr Speaker, other jurisdictions have similar arrangements for the release of papers. I understand that they rely heavily on convention and practice as much as legislation. The ACT has not yet addressed this issue and, to do so, I have brought forward this legislation. Members will recall that I have raised this issue before, and indeed it formed part of my agenda at the last election in 1998.
I am proposing for the release of ACT Cabinet papers a 10-year rule. Under this proposal, Cabinet papers would be released in the eleventh year following the year in which they were before the Cabinet. I suspect that at first glance members may see this as an unusually short time, but I suggest that the place to start thinking about this is not from a tradition of long secrecy but from the principle that all decision-making should be open except where there is public interest to suggest otherwise.
There is indeed a case for the deliberations of Cabinet to take place in a confidential manner, to allow Cabinet space to consider options without pressure and to prepare for announcements of policy in a manner which does not allow selected citizens any inside knowledge. However, in my view, these public interests date fairly quickly.
It can also be argued that the quality of decision-making would suffer if Cabinet members were not allowed a measure of protection, for a period of time, of the way in which they wrestled with difficult policy issues. This argument is obviously in tension with a pure principle of openness, but I suspect that almost all members accept that it
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