Page 858 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 2 May 2007
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providing it. The bill amended the legislation so that the work involved in an FOI request can be taken into account in a determination as to whether a request is refused. That means, quite simply, that the government can allege that a request for information would cost too much or be too difficult to produce. In relation to the government’s refusal to disclose documents concerning the bulk closure of ACT schools, we have already seen that the Stanhope government is all too ready to use its power to keep its actions and its decision making secret. So much for the code the Chief Minister talked so nobly about in 2001.
Why should this be? What does the government have to fear? I think it shows how arrogant and underhand this government has become. It is a government of spin and slogans. Depriving the public of its right to know is an act of total hypocrisy from a government and a Chief Minister that like to present themselves as champions of human rights. Even before the amendment, the Stanhope government took extraordinary measures to try to stop the opposition from getting access to documents concerning school closures through the AAT.
This week we have seen some other instances in relation to issues of expenditure. We have been calling for the release of details of the progress of all capital works reports. Capital works quarterly reports were introduced by the Carnell government, I think, in about 1996. No quarterly reports have been released since December 2005. The Chief Minister has approved the decision of Treasury that the capital works progress reports were “neither required by legislation nor useful outside the bureaucracy”, “not user-friendly to the public” and “determined … to more appropriately be used internally within government”.
Yesterday the Chief Minister could not offer any real reason for the suppression of these reports. He said merely that some information could be assessed from annual reports—hardly a substitute for quarterly updates—and that, for the rest, the estimates committee process was available for eliciting information. It seems that we have to drag basic data about government spending from this administration with a pair of hot tweezers. Even then, the government does its best to slide around or away from the facts in estimates. That is not a model of transparent, accountable and open government—not by a long shot. How twisted the core values of this government have become.
I see that in his proposed amendment to my motion Jon Stanhope will say that he contrasts that record with that of the previous Liberal government. The previous Liberal government introduced quarterly capital reports. We introduced ministerial travel reports on a quarterly basis. In the sum total of things, you can see us as almost a model of openness compared with you lot and the restrictions you have placed on openness and accountability, especially over the last couple of years.
On every test of open and accountable government, this government is failing to meet the most basic standards, much less meet its own exalted ideals of fairness, accountability, responsibility and openness. The steps and measures it has taken in recent times show those to be empty words. Those opposite have made a joke out of their own code.
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