Page 1108 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 3 May 2006
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10 years cabinet-in-confidence documents will be released. That is an old ploy. Here we go again. Bartos is awake to that because he says:
Classifying a report as “Cabinet-in-confidence” will keep it secret, including from Freedom of Information requests, but as a general practice is highly undesirable.
He goes on to say, in relation to the functional review, at page 7 of the Canberra Times report:
In the case of the functional review, it should be possible for the Government to publish some sections—if not the recommendations, at least some of the facts, figures and analysis it undoubtedly contains.
I hope we will see that at least. Here is a Labor man coming out quite strongly, saying, “The public purse has paid for this. It is something that the government should review.” In fact, he goes on to say in his article:
To the extent that the functional review is feeding in to the ACT Government’s budget process, there is therefore some justification for the review remaining confidential until the overall shape of the budget is announced. But there is a good case for factual analysis in the report to be published, either with the budget or as a separate document.
He then goes on to say that “the public should be able to see the report that review produces” because public money has been used to contribute to “an evaluation, review or study”.
Mr Stanhope: Table that quote, Bill.
MR STEFANIAK: I will table the whole paper. I will table the lot actually; there you go. The quotes are highlighted. A Labor man, someone you would expect to support you and no doubt does, is saying that you should be tabling this functional review. I am a little bit amazed at the extent to which you are being so secretive. Secrecy seems to be a hallmark of this government, but I can see some benefits, even to you, if you table this.
Mr Smyth, in moving this motion, stated that regular reviews of government operations are valuable. He has listed reports, including Mr Kaine’s report. I vaguely recall that. I think it was in May 1990. I do not think he dilly-dallied about tabling that. That was tabled very, very quickly indeed. Regular reviews are a crucial part of the government process. A crucial part of the review process is to involve the community in the review. That means that the review should be released.
Morris Iemma, as my colleague Mr Smyth said, has released an equivalent report prepared in New South Wales earlier this year. Why are you not doing so? Is a key reason—and this is something that we are well aware of—that the need for the Costello report has been the poor financial management of the ACT budget? I have one little point there. I am not going to dwell on it because that is not the crux of this motion. You were left with a surplus. You had GST revenue of about $437 million when you took over. It is now $700-something million. How on earth can you get yourself into the mess you have got yourself into? You need to get yourself out of that. As is the situation in New
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