Page 2360 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 16 June 2009
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
ACT government have done that yet. Instead, they fought tooth and nail to maintain conclusive certificates when Mrs Dunne brought on her legislation trying to get rid of them. They fought tooth and nail to retain the power to keep government documents secret.
When Mr Seselja brought in his legislation on government advertising, the Chief Minister gave a long tirade about how inappropriate it was. If he was truly interested in openness and accountability, he would have embraced that legislation, as the Greens have done. We want to make sure we get this right, because we are happy to have this kind of check and balance on government. If we are being open and transparent and are doing nothing wrong, we have nothing to fear.
I was particularly amused by Mr Stanhope bringing up the issue of cabinet confidentiality while he has had one of his ministers romping around for the last couple of weeks talking about the discussion he is about to take into cabinet about fireworks. He is going to tell us all about the cabinet process and where his various colleagues stand on this when normally cabinet confidentiality is such a virtue of his government. It is interesting to note that the Welsh parliament put their cabinet documents on the internet within a couple of weeks. For the ACT government, that would be a fundamental undermining of the notion of Westminster government. It says a lot about how important attitude is, as it is the executive that has the power to shape the culture—is it going to be openness and transparency or is it going to be secrecy and denial?
Mr Stanhope: Remind us again of what Mr Street said. What did Justice Street say again? You know—your commission, the arbitrator.
MR RATTENBURY: Thank you, Mr Stanhope, you remind me of that other point I want to come to—that is, your wonderful ability for hyperbole and exaggeration, your wonderful ability to take points out of context, twist them to your own benefit and completely distort things that people have said. I was interested in your interpretation of the estimates process. While sitting in estimates—I probably sat in there a bit more than you did—I actually found it a very useful process on many occasions, despite my frustration at not being able to get answers to what were basic and obvious questions. There were actually some quite good and often very useful exchanges in estimates. But you have come in today and told us how terrible it was. The only common denominator in your interpretation of events is the occasions on which you were there, and you say it was dreadful. I watched the session at which you were present and, frankly, the body language said it all. So let us have a look at what the common denominator is here.
Mr Stanhope: Whose body language?
MR RATTENBURY: Yours, Mr Stanhope—head down, arms crossed, slouched back in the chair. Why not engage in a useful process in estimates? I simply make this point because—
Mr Stanhope: It’s body language now?
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .