Page 4719 - Week 15 - Tuesday, 13 December 2005
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did not even want us to know about the first draft of their anti-terror laws until they had rammed them through both houses of parliament. What impact would revoking the Administration (Interstate Agreements) Act have then? I would hope the Labor opposition would be arguing against it.
Mr Hargreaves: There won’t ever be a Labor opposition.
DR FOSKEY: The hypothetical situation I was presenting to you was that of a Labor opposition if we had a Liberal government in the ACT. As this bill will remove almost all transparency available to the Assembly about interstate agreements, I will not be supporting it.
MR STANHOPE (Ginninderra—Chief Minister, Attorney-General, Minister for the Environment and Minister for Arts, Heritage and Indigenous Affairs) (10.51), in reply: In 2001 I announced a code of good government that would guide the way in which a Stanhope government would conduct itself. One of the key planks in that code was a commitment to conduct government operations in an open, honest and accountable manner. The improvements to the reporting of and consultation regarding intergovernmental agreement negotiations to which I am committing my government deliver on that goal.
The Administration (Interstate Agreements) Repeal Bill that we are debating today is not a difficult bill to explain. Quite simply, it repeals the Administration (Interstate Agreements) Act 1997. The drafting of the bill will ensure that any commitments arising under the act that are already in train will cease upon the repeal of the act. The act will be replaced by non-legislative measures that will both simplify any governmental agreement reporting and improve the transparency of the intergovernmental agreement negotiation process.
The new measures compel the executive arm of government to inform the Assembly of current intergovernmental agreement negotiations. Ministers will be required to table new agreements in the Assembly. The full text of the new intergovernmental agreements will be published on the government website. Through requiring ministers to consult the Assembly regarding interstate agreements the act intended to ensure that the Assembly’s ability to consider legislation was not unduly constrained by agreements entered into by the executive. The scheme established by the act was focused on consultation and providing information.
The act was unique and groundbreaking at the time of its introduction. In the years since its entry into force the act has attracted some attention from other jurisdictions. However, despite that attention, no other jurisdiction in Australia has legislated similarly. In a show of goodwill the act was passed with the support of all parties in the Assembly. Passing the act was recognition of the importance the Assembly placed on being informed of executive actions regarding intergovernmental agreements. However, no amount of goodwill has been or will be enough to overcome the inherent shortcomings of the act.
The act takes a convoluted and clumsy approach to meeting its objective. Only agreements that could reasonably be expected to result in legislation in the ACT are captured by the act. At first blush this sounds like a simple criterion for determining which intergovernmental negotiations fall within the scope of the act. However, in
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