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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 5 Hansard (10 May) . . Page.. 1403 ..
MR STEFANIAK (continuing):
companies or commercial entities that Canberra is not a very sensible place to get involved with because all sorts of information that every other place would regard as being privy to people in contractual relationships is put on the table, not because it is in the public interest but so it can used for political point-scoring?
During the ACTEW/AGL debate and other debates we have heard about people interested in mergers with the territory being scared off. Even Labor members and Labor ministers in the New South Wales parliament were saying that the ACT Assembly was a law unto itself and that this could be a real problem if they were to be overseeing things. (Extension of time granted.) In the view of that government, the ACT Assembly might incorrectly intervene. That is something members should be worried about.
Someone can correct me if I am wrong, but my understanding is that a lot of tickets were sold for a concert at Bruce Stadium. The stadium, BOPL, were going to make a profit. However, through an act of God-in other words, the weather-the concert had to be cancelled. As a result, people were refunded the money they had paid for their tickets. If anyone has been inconvenienced in any way and has a claim on the insurers, they have rights under the law which I do not think anyone has suggested to me would not apply. People may be disappointed and may have suffered some inconvenience because the concert was cancelled, but no-one will be out of pocket and not compensated.
Getting back to my point about the public interest test, I cannot see how on earth Mr Stanhope's motion advances the public interest one iota. If anything, there is a danger of too much information and too much extraneous information not relevant to the public interest being put on the table, to the detriment of commercial deals that are properly done and lawfully done between bodies. That could be a real problem for people wanting to do business in the territory in future. Quite clearly, there is no public interest in disclosing the information Mr Stanhope wants. If anything, it may well be dangerous to do so.
MR RUGENDYKE (5.05): Open and accountable government is a very serious matter that we are all aware of and take note of, but I recognise that a line needs to be drawn in the sand as to how far that goes. There may well be a good reason for disclosure of the insurance policy and the claim form sought under this motion. There may well be a rabbit at the bottom of the burrow that needs to be exposed. It is hard to think what rabbit it might be, but I am sure that we will hear the reason for needing to see the insurance policy, the insurer's name and all that sort of thing when there is a reason to know that. I will hear that in the closing speech perhaps. I will listen intently, as I have done through this debate, as to why we need to know about the insurance company or the claim form between two organisations. I am sure that in the closing speeches I will hear a good reason to support the motion.
MR SMYTH
(Minister for Urban Services) (5.07): Mr Speaker, I would like to correct a few things that Mr Berry said in his Chicken Little speech about the sky falling. He spoke of the economic footpath littered with the failings of this government. Let us look at them, Mr Speaker. We did not just stumble into the fastest economic growth in the country. It is the result of the policies of the government. We did not trip into a balanced budget. It is due to the hard work we have done as a government. We did not just fall into 5.2 per cent unemployment. We have worked very hard to achieve that. We certainly did not slip into the highest private sector growth or the best job ads growth, against the
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