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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 01 Hansard (Tuesday, 10 February 2004) . . Page.. 71 ..

“Ministers,” said Mrs Carnell, “must accept standards of conduct which are different from those applying to others having office in the Assembly or the wider community”. Whilst the code of conduct dealt with primarily, as perhaps benefits a document emanating from a Liberal government, with issues concerning interests with private companies and businesses, it has this to say about the principle of accountability:

All ministers will recognise that full and true disclosure and accountability to the Parliament are the cornerstones of the Westminster system which at the present time is the basis for government in the ACT...Ministerial responsibility also requires…the individual responsibility of ministers to the Assembly for the administration of their departments and agencies.

This is the Chief Minister’s definition:

Ministerial responsibility…requires…the individual responsibility of ministers to the Assembly for the administration of their departments and agencies.

This is the Chief Minister’s code of conduct.

That was a code of conduct that Mr Stanhope advocated in government and, indeed, promised that he would strengthen in government. However, he sat on this hands for two years and, when faced with the test of setting standards for his ministers, he has actually squibbed it.

Mr Stanhope continued:

What commitment has the Chief Minister to her stated views about the importance of ministerial responsibility?

The voters of the ACT might well ask what commitment this Chief Minister has to the importance of ministerial responsibility. Mr Stanhope continued:

Does she still believe…that Ministers are required to accept higher standards than other members or those prevailing in the community. Does she still accept that the bar is set higher for ministers and that she, as Chief Minister, has an even more pressing obligation? We are entitled to ask these questions on behalf of the community and the community is entitled to an unequivocal answer, just as it is entitled to anticipate that the answer will be yes.

The now Chief Minister, Mr Stanhope, in the debate on the hospital implosion nominated proximity as a key factor in deciding whether a minister had responsibility. He stated in that debate in relation to the question of proximity:

Mr Humphries asked what was our test of the standard of ministerial responsibility. And the clearest answer is, of course, proximity. In the cases Mr Stefaniak raised, deaths at Quamby and the remand centre, the Ministers involved were well removed from the incidents. The public servants involved were well down the chain. We all know this. We know the difference. But in the case of the Chief Minister in relation to the implosion, the proximity is stark. We are talking about the head of the Chief Minister’s Department. We are talking about senior executives in her department,

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