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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 4 Hansard (28 March) . . Page.. 1054 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

There are a range of other concerns which I think are adequately addressed in Ms Tucker's motion. I am certainly satisfied that this matter ought to go off to the Auditor-General. I bet there was not a democratic vote in respect of the part of the motion that expresses concern about access for clients and staff of the corporation. I wonder if Mr Moore insisted that they have a democratic vote first. I bet he did not.

The motion also talks about support for commercial development in a location which is contrary to principles of the Territory Plan. I hear on the tom-toms that the National Capital Authority will not hand over any documents in relation to this matter. This is just another demonstration to me that there has been a bit of a cook-up and that something has again been kept from the people of the ACT by the National Capital Authority. There is no interest in the Territory Plan. All they have is some hidden interest, which I doubt that we will ever discover.

I will now get to the nub of my amendment. It is clear to me that this Assembly was deliberately misled in relation to these documents. This minister came into this place and boasted:

This should be open to some transparency, but it has to be appropriate. What we need to do is make sure that people understand the details that they put forward are protected where it is appropriate, and that details put forward that should be out there should be seen by all. The government does not have a problem with the motion now-

that is the motion, as amended, calling for presentation of the papers-

and I thank members for the guarantees that they will protect the commercial-in-confidence detail that will be in these documents.

So initially the minister said, "This will be in the documents. All the information will be there for you to see." Mr Smyth apparently then discovered that, whilst he had given that undertaking, this had not occurred. It appears that somewhere in CTEC a decision had been made to deliver the documents in a form which was not the form required by the Assembly. The minister then came back into the Assembly and said:

On a second matter: the Assembly asked yesterday that documents from CTEC be lodged with the Clerk for members to view. That has been done. The documents were lodged with the Clerk by 5 o'clock, in accordance with Ms Tucker's motion. CTEC has prepared them in a way that documents to be released normally are. They have taken the confidential data out of them, which is not in the spirit of what this place agreed. The first set of documents is available for members to view. I have asked that CTEC prepare a second set in accordance with what was agreed.

The form of the documents is my fault. I apologise. I spoke to Mr Stainlay when Ms Tucker moved her motion and said, "What will we do?" He told me how he would prepare a set normally for an FOI request. He prepared one set. We will get a second set quickly with all the details members said that they would view and keep confidential.

(Extension of time granted.) So twice Mr Smyth said, "You are getting the documents. They are on their way. The first set did not arrive as you directed and I have moved to fix that."

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