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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 6 Hansard (14 June) . . Page.. 1710 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

Obviously government is privy to information from time to time which is very important, information which will temper and guide the way in which it makes decisions about different matters, and necessarily some of that information cannot be shared more widely with other people. There are some who have argued-the former Independent member for North Sydney, for example, Ted Mack-that there is no reason for any secrecy or for matters to be kept confidential within administrations. He was speaking from the point of view of a local authority in Sydney, of course, when he made those assertions. I have to say, with my experience in government, that I do not believe that that is possible, certainly not at this level of government. If one assumes that it is the case that governments sometimes have information which others do not share, it is to be assumed that there would be other reasons for considering the wisdom of doing certain things, including conducting inquiries under the Inquiries Act.

Mr Speaker, I think there are very good reasons for being extremely careful about the way in which the power is widened without the capacity to make a decision based on the full facts. But, as I have said, Mr Speaker, that threshold has already been crossed. Of course, it is also possible already to conduct quite comprehensive inquiries into these matters, and I have not been convinced, in any recent case at least, that there has been any shortcoming in the capacity of Assembly committees, be they standing or select, to be able to get to the bottom of matters if that is their wish.

Ms Tucker: What did you say yesterday, Mr Humphries?

MR HUMPHRIES: It is not a question of capacity, Ms Tucker. It is a question of will. If the committee has the will to get to the bottom of something, to examine it critically and comprehensively, it can do so. If it wishes to use an inquiry for other purposes, of course, that is another matter. I think the capacity of committees of the Assembly to have inquiries comprehensively if that is what they want to do has not been proven to be inadequate, and in those circumstances, to add another inquiry capacity, as it were, into the hands of members of the Assembly would be a mistake.

Mr Speaker, those are the government's reasons for being concerned about these matters. I do not believe that there is any evidence that the inquiry system has been exercised in a way in this place which could be described as being improper or in circumstances which were not warranted under the circumstances. We have had a number of inquiries under the Inquiries Act in the years since the legislation was enacted. There was the inquiry into the leasehold system by Justice Stein from New South Wales. There was the inquiry into matters relating to contractual arrangements between ACTTAB and VITAB. Mr John Burbidge conducted that. I think in both those cases there was wide support in the Assembly for such matters to be inquired into. It is unfortunate that the inquiry now being conducted by Justice Gallop is distinguished by being the first inquiry which was initiated in such controversial circumstances without there being real support. However, we have to expect more of that if the Assembly acquires the power to conduct these inquiries.

Mr Speaker, I think those are the government's arguments, put reasonably succinctly. I hope that members will consider the question not so much of whether this bill is passed today or not-as I have said, in effect the legislation is already in force-but the question of whether or not we have sufficiently defined how far we may go in these matters and whether there is a clear sense of what the legislature is able to do vis-a-vis the executive

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