Page 801 - Week 02 - Thursday, 12 February 2009
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been made by the Labor Party, I think the Greens should get used to disappointment, because I do not think they are going to be delivering on many of those. We have seen that already, and I would expect that the vast bulk of those commitments that we have seen from the Labor Party in that agreement when it comes to specific policies will be pushed back for a number of years, will be quietly shelved and will be downgraded in one way or another.
We are seeing the language already. We have seen that the targets are now aspirational targets. That is a very broad term which leaves a lot of wriggle room. I suppose the community, particularly those who voted for the Greens, will be starting to ask, “Are we seeing these policies being delivered?” The early signs are that this is unlikely to happen.
Let us look specifically at this part of the agreement, because when Mr Corbell talked to this issue when we were seeking documents in December, this is what he had to say. He said:
That is why the Labor Party has agreed, in its agreement with the Greens, that the way to resolve these disputes about which executive documents should be made available to the Assembly, and how calls for documents should be resolved, is to establish the independent arbiter approach.
He goes on:
I am disappointed that the Liberal Party seems to be unaware of these developments, particularly given the fact that it is spelt out publicly in an agreement between the Labor Party and the Greens and it would not take much work to go and look at the standing orders of the New South Wales upper house to understand how it works.
We have looked at the standing orders, and that is what Mrs Dunne’s amendment is about: it is about what the Labor Party and the Greens said this was going to be. Mr Corbell went on to describe how this new system would work:
That is made available to members and then it is up to members of the upper house in New South Wales to determine whether or not they want to continue to press their claim for the publication of those executive documents.
He goes on to say:
I think that is good process.
We will not have that opportunity under this new arrangement. Members of the Assembly will not have the opportunity to press their claims. There are two sides to that, of course, because the way I read it, by allowing members to look at it, the situation may be that they look at it and say, “Well, no, it’s not really worth pursuing and we don’t have to go through this process,” and they will not press their claims. But what we will have is a situation where—and this government has a record of it when they do not want to give something up—it all has to go to the independent arbiter, and we will not have any ability to examine documents unless this independent arbiter grants us that ability or decides that documents are to be released.
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