Page 2061 - Week 06 - Thursday, 7 May 2009
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Mr Corbell interjecting—
MR SMYTH: Mr Corbell was interjecting, “Go to the decision.” Let us go to the decision. In the decision, the former Chief Justice says that a “well-reasoned Outline of the Claim” is listed in paragraphs 26 to 29. I will just quote 26 to 29. Let us go to 26:
The Report was prepared solely for submission to cabinet.
That is actually unclear, as Mrs Dunne pointed out. Mr Quinlan found out about it the following morning when he read about it in the newspaper. Mr Quinlan was a member of cabinet. If it was a cabinet decision, you would have expected all the cabinet members to know. And, as Mr Rattenbury pointed out, it is quite clear that the words “cabinet” and “government” are used interchangeably. In the document tabled, the word “cabinet” does not even appear. And, in the initial words of the Chief Minister, this was a report prepared for government. It was not prepared for cabinet. Is paragraph 26 accurate? I do not believe so. I think it is certainly unclear.
Let me go to paragraph 27. The Chief Minister wrote to the arbiter:
Further, giving the Legislative Assembly access to the Report is inconsistent with ministerial responsibility, individual or collectively, as it is the responsibility of Cabinet to determine what use is … made of the Report, which was commissioned … for the sole purposes of the executive government.
Again, I think that is unclear. What they do with the information contained in it is their business, and that is their right. But it is reasonable for those who are affected by what is in this report—particularly if the report is inaccurate. From what we understand from the summary document For the future, there are numerous inaccuracies in the way it has treated things as diverse as the tourism budget, spending on business programs, emergency services—and it goes on.
It goes on and says:
Production of the Report is not reasonably necessary for the proper performance of the Legislative Assembly’s functions, as all appropriate material relating to the relevant budget and structural decisions were and will be made available as part of the relevant budget legislative process.
They were not made available. Quite clearly, that paragraph, paragraph 27, is not true. The information that we asked for—there are so many unanswered questions that the government has refused to answer. Therefore, clearly, the information required by those of us in the legislature to answer our needs has not been met. This paragraph—who judges what is appropriate? The executive did; the government did—to hide what they were doing.
It goes on, at paragraph 28:
Finally, its production would significantly undermine the continued effective operation of the government. The Report is a very clear example of the type of document to be protected from production by executive privilege.
Again, that is an assertion. It is simply an assertion:
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