Page 2606 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 2 July 2008
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… ultimately that the government took decisions around this project specifically about where it was …
The minister should look at the July 2007 brief to the Chief Minister, which says that TAMS should be advised that their cabinet submission should be deferred until the Chief Minister has determined which of the three sites is to be offered to ActewAGL. There is the first chink in the armour of the Deputy Chief Minister. She told the Canberra Times that there are no documents that the government took decisions around this project specifically, and yet here is a brief to the Chief Minister saying that, until he has determined which of the three sites is to be offered to ActewAGL, other things should not happen.
There is the first chink in the Deputy Chief Minister’s armour, and there is the first chink in the government’s case that there is no case to answer here. Ms Gallagher is wrong, and Ms Gallagher should write to the people of Canberra through the Canberra Times and withdraw that statement. To a certain extent, when she pointed that out, Ms Gallagher was probably fairly confident that nothing incriminating would be released. When you look at the number of documents that have come out of the three departments that have responded to freedom of information requests, we have only received 21 per cent of the available documents. Yes, that is right. Of the 3,876 documents listed to date, 3,048 are unavailable to the opposition and the people of Canberra for scrutiny.
You have to remember that this is a government that when in opposition said, “We will be more honest, more open and accountable. We will not hide behind commercial in confidence; we will not hide behind cabinet in confidence.” On every occasion when requests have been made for the government to be more honest, more accountable and more open over the last several years, particularly over the last several months, what we have is stonewalling by this government.
It is interesting to run through the numbers. In the Chief Minister’s Department, the total pages come to 1,922 plus two cabinet submissions. Of these, 389 pages were released, so about 20 per cent. Unfortunately, of that 20 per cent, almost half were very heavily censored. It is odd that documents from other departments were not censored in the same way. They did not believe they were subject to any sort of exclusion. Then there are the pages that were released to the media and not to the members of the Assembly or the estimates committee. They are the five pages that went to the media to somehow make the government’s case.
How many pages were tabled in parliament or the estimates committee by the government? Absolutely none. The Leader of the Opposition has actually tabled more documents in this place than the government has. I suspect the Leader of the Opposition and members of the opposition have probably read more of the documents than the Deputy Chief Minister has. The proportion of pages suppressed by the Chief Minister’s Department comes to 80 per cent. It does lead to an interesting interpretation of being more open and more accountable.
As to the Land Development Agency, which is also under the control of the Chief Minister, of the total of 1,954 pages available for release, 939 were released, of which
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