Page 1099 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 3 May 2006
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Now, having received this report, Jon Stanhope is hiding it under the cloak of cabinet confidentiality, which is quite amusing because it was a unilateral decision of the Chief Minister to instigate the review. We understand his colleagues in his cabinet did not know. Ted Quinlan certainly did not know. He went over Ted’s head and appointed Shane Gilbert, recently removed from Mr Quinlan’s department—a more or less up-yours to the former Treasurer from the Chief Minister. But now, having received this report, the Chief Minister is hiding it under the cloak of cabinet confidentiality. If the Chief Minister had any courage, had any sense of what is right and had any sense of engaging with the community, he would release the report now; he would consult, and debate with, the community on the findings in the report. Then he would develop proposals to respond to the report’s findings in the view of the community.
We have got a Chief Minister who is quite prepared to take potentially divisive, social issues to the community because he can argue these issues from what he sees as the moral high ground. But put the Chief Minister in front of the community with some really tough financial or economic matters and he just goes to water. He cannot even start the fight, let alone sustain it. So we are seeing, in Jon Stanhope’s decision to hide the Costello report, weakness. Weakness in a leader is a real problem for the constituency. It is now a cabinet document, simply for convenience. It is interesting that, in his weakness, Jon Stanhope seems to have sensed that the community warrants some insights into the conclusions of the Costello report.
What has he done? He has let Mr Costello provide briefings to select groups within our community, and this decision has raised some critical questions. Who will be included in these briefing sessions? Who will not be included in these briefing sessions? And what information will be provided in the sessions?
As far as we are aware, Mr Costello has briefed a small number of representatives from the trade union movement, and Mr Costello has met with a small range of representatives from the ACT business community. We are not aware yet whether Mr Costello has met anyone else. Mr Costello apparently has not met with some of the key unions that operate in the ACT and, in particular, any representatives from the ACT’s community sector. Jon Stanhope has been selective in the way he has orchestrated Mr Costello’s briefings as he sought to stifle any outbreak of concerns about the tough decisions that had to be made.
In 2001, Jon Stanhope promised open, transparent government, with proper notions of accountability and responsibility. Once again, he and his government have been wanting in these respects, yet they have consistently caved in to their own self-interest and pet projects. Moreover, it was Jon Stanhope, again in 2001, who was at pains to emphasise the importance of conducting effective consultation with the ACT community, yet it is now Jon Stanhope who has failed in this regard on so many occasions, demonstrating an increasing level of arrogance and disregard for community opinion.
The Chief Minister claims that the Costello report is protected by cabinet confidentiality. In reality, this is simply a device imposed by the Chief Minister to hide the nature of the analysis, conclusions and recommendations made by Costello from the people of the ACT. As I have said, neither the cabinet nor his colleagues even knew the review was to begin.
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