Page 1130 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 3 May 2006
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How are you going to know what the community needs if you do not talk to them? You publicly thumb your nose at them. If you are going to do it behind closed doors and then make it public, that is different. That is a second-best way to do it, but at least it is something. You have not openly consulted with them. Irrespective of the release of the report, it should have happened. Stephen Bartos goes on to say:
When public money contributes to an evaluation, review or study then, as a general principle the public should be able to see the report that review produces.
What is so secret? Why are we selectively choosing people here and not other people there? It is interesting that Mr Stanhope made the point that, if the report was released, people could make mischief with it. I absolutely agree. Mr Bartos says:
Mischievous use of a report can damage not only the government but the overall interests of the community.
I would posit to members that that is exactly what the Chief Minister has done. He has made mischief with his own functional review. He has said something to some people, not told other people and thumbed his nose at another group of people. So the whole community is left wondering and pondering: am I going to get to keep my job; will funds be cut here; will we have to come before the budget estimates committee again grovelling on our knees? How are people supposed to plan? I do not know if Mr Stanhope realises what he said this morning. The Chief Minister should remember this when he berates the former Liberal government. Finally, Stephen Bartos said:
The “Johnny did it first/Alice does it too” justification works fine in the playground, but it is not always good public policy. It should be possible for the ACT government to demonstrate a higher level of commitment to open government and accountability, and let the community into the process to a greater extent.
DR FOSKEY (Molonglo) (3.48): When the Chief Minister announced the Costello review in November last year, he told us that he was “keen to identify those areas where we are doing things right”. He also said he wanted to “identify those areas where we could be doing better, where we need to concentrate greater resources or reduce red tape or improve our responsiveness”. Presumably Costello’s report has identified areas where the government could be doing better. No one likes to have their faults paraded in public, and I understand that the government does not want to give what it sees as a free kick to its opponents. It takes courage and a belief in the benefits of participatory and open government to open up the advices and deliberative processes of government to public scrutiny. Of course, sometimes it is inappropriate to submit frank critical assessments to public scrutiny.
The exemption clauses for internal working documents in the Freedom of Information Act are there for a good reason. It would be counterproductive to insist that all information prepared for government become public knowledge. Authors of such reports tend to water down their criticisms, deliver verbal rather than written criticisms, and write with an eye to the public reaction. Anything that discourages frank and fearless advice is to be avoided where possible. However, there is no excuse for withholding in its entirety a broad ranging, comprehensive and inevitably partially subjective report such as one entitled “a functional review of government structures and programs”.
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