Page 2439 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 17 June 2009
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the Property Council and, it would appear, the Canberra Times, she did not even want to bring it back to the Assembly. It appears now that she is backtracking from that position and will be forced to bring it back to the Assembly. But we want the information. And it is reasonable that we ask for it. And that is what Mr Hanson’s motion does.
The Greens’ amendment and their comments are concerning to us, and we do not believe they are pursuing this issue as they should and pursuing the accountability and the full disclosure that is necessary here. Mrs Dunne’s amendment is a worthy compromise. I would be concerned and we would certainly be concerned that, if, with that compromise, the Greens do not want this information to be presented, they are happy for these deals to be conducted in secret, that they are happy for this information to be withheld. We have not seen any record of openness from this government or this minister, and we heard the attitude in estimates that, if we do not extract the information from her, she is certainly not going to offer it up.
Ms Gallagher: You have not got over that, have you?
MR SESELJA: We are taking—
Ms Gallagher: You just have not got over the fact you were asleep in estimates and you did not ask the question.
MR SESELJA: It was always something we knew with the minister but I think it is perhaps an eye-opener for the Greens as well. You are not going to get information from this minister unless you force it out of her. I think we all know that. And now, as an Assembly, we need to back that up. We need to not simply accept that ministers are going to give us information because they are being magnanimous. They will only give us information if we force them to. The Calvary issue is a clear example of that. She hid it before the election. She would have hidden it in an ongoing manner until it was out in the Canberra Times.
What this amendment is doing is correcting that, saying no, we do not expect that this minister certainly will offer up any information; we will seek to enforce it; we will seek, as an Assembly, to express our very strong view that it should be provided; and we seek all members of the Assembly’s support for what is essentially a motion about full disclosure. This is about full disclosure before the fact. We have not got it to date. We expect that we will get it now, and I call on all members to support Mr Hanson’s motion in its original form. But if the Greens feel the need to amend it then I would put to them that Mrs Dunne’s amendment is a worthy compromise which still ensures that we get the full disclosure that we need and that we can be absolutely assured we will not get unless we push for it.
If we are just going to sit back and wait for this minister to give us the information, it will not happen. We need to get it and we need to force it out of this government. And these are the accountability processes we need to put in place. This is the role that the Assembly needs to play, and I would urge all members very strongly to support Mr Hanson’s motion or, at the very least, to support the compromise offered by Mrs Dunne to Ms Bresnan’s amendment.
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