Page 1887 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 25 June 2008
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proposal for a smidgeon of political gain, the Liberals will take it—they will be in it. He has sent the message that due process and procedural fairness are things of the past, and that he believes in intervening and undermining and aborting statutory processes according to his personal whim.
Despite the best efforts of the Leader of the Opposition to undermine our statutory processes, they have been shown, over the course of this episode, to work and to work well. The public’s views are being heard. The proposal’s virtues and impacts are being assessed. (Extension of time granted.) No decision has been reached, because the process is not complete. Oddly, while his fellow Liberals may be threatening to chain themselves to bulldozers and his candidates are publicly advocating the complete relocation of the development to another site, the Leader of the Opposition seems to have some small, vestigial understanding of process.
He was even on ABC radio last Friday, dancing away from giving a categorical appraisal of whether, as a resident of Macarthur, he thought the development was appropriate. Instead, what did he do? He pointed out to Mr Solly, “Oh, Mr Solly, but there’s a process being followed.” Well, hallelujah. Yes, there is a process. In fact, there are a few processes here, and today’s motion seeks to undermine and pre-empt every single one of them. It seeks to undermine and pre-empt ACTPLA’s assessment of the development application and the consultation process. It seeks to undermine and pre-empt the operation of the Freedom of Information Act—I will say more on that in a moment. It seeks to undermine and pre-empt the consortium’s pursuit of an alternative site for the peaking power plant by labelling the cause lost, the money gone and the dream of power security for the people of Canberra dead.
Let me turn briefly now to the third matter raised by the Leader of the Opposition, that I selectively released material to the media and withheld information from the Assembly and the estimates committee. As with each of his allegations, these accusations are spurious and easily dispensed with. It is a pity that the Leader of the Opposition did not seek the counsel of wiser and more experienced members of his party before wasting the Assembly’s time with this particular baseless accusation. One might have hoped that a would-be Chief Minister would know that ministers play no role whatsoever in deciding what information is released in response to a freedom of information application. Indeed, often times a minister is only vaguely aware that such an application has been made. Governments that have nothing to hide have nothing to fear from the FOI act. As I say, ministers play no role in the process. The Leader of the Opposition’s colleague, Mrs Dunne, appreciates that fact. Indeed, she acknowledged in estimates last week:
That decisions relating to release are made by delegated officials.
It is a pity that she was not given the opportunity to counsel her leader before he put his ignorance on display to the Assembly and the community, as he has done here again today. It is a pity, too, that someone more conversant with the act could not have walked the opposition leader through some of the law’s other provisions; for example, the reasons why documents might be deemed to be exempt. One such provision, very pertinent to the current proceedings, is the provision under section 27 that material concerning a third party be shown to those parties before release, and that a 30-day extension be made to the original 30-day time limit to allow for that to happen.
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