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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 7 Hansard (21 June) . . Page.. 2309 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

government for quite some time that they are secretive, and the first few times Labor are tested for openness and accountability they fail on every single account. They failed when it came to the Electoral Act. They have failed when I have challenged them again and again, as have other members of the Assembly, to make parliamentary travel open and tabled in the Assembly. They have failed, Mr Speaker, with regard to education results. It is always easy to make things open when you want to.

Mr Stanhope: What a lot of garbage. You just reflected on a vote.

MR MOORE: But what happens when you don't want to? That is the burning question. So, Mr Speaker, failure, failure, failure, every time they have been tested on openness.

Mr Berry: Mr Speaker, when-

MR SPEAKER: Order! I am tired of these constant interjections. We have a lot to do today and I suggest that we all start behaving as adults and get on with representing the people of the Australian Capital Territory.

Mr Berry: Mr Speaker, on a point of order: Mr Moore said that the Labor Party had failed in relation to information that is given to school students. That is a reflection on the vote of the Assembly.

MR SPEAKER: There is no point of order.

MR MOORE: Mr Speaker, I will be careful to make sure I do not reflect on a vote of the Assembly. Mr Speaker, this is the fourth possibility. Usually it's three strikes and you are out when being tested, but here is the fourth one. Here is your opportunity to show that you can be open and accountable. Stick with your policy of six years and let us get back to the retrospective issue in a little while.

Mr Speaker, there is a huge irony here. Every single argument that you have heard Labor make today could have been made, and probably was by this side of the house I should say, about all the documents with regard to Bruce Stadium. The government delivered document after document, boxes and boxes and boxes of them.

Mr Quinlan: That is not what it says here, mate. They were empty.

Mr Stanhope: Except the ones that are still missing.

MR MOORE: Mr Speaker, add yet another element that Ms Tucker raised and that touches on the very issue about which you are interjecting, and that is these series of categories that are exempted anyway for the protection of a wide range of things. She went through them so it is not necessary for me to go through them.

Then we hear the argument that we do not want this respectively, we only want it prospectively. It is worth stopping a moment and asking why would they want to-

Mr Stanhope: That is what Mr Osborne and his committee wants as well, which the government hasn't responded to.

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