Page 2777 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 23 June 2009
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I believe the government has rejected that particular recommendation, although I do not have it in front of me. We heard from the Chief Minister claiming that the report is cabinet-in-confidence. We are starting to hear this a lot. There did not really appear to be a reason why a report of this nature, a report about one particular department and some of its management, would need to be cabinet-in-confidence.
This, on the face of it, appears to be an example of where a government has created a report and then later on stamped it “cabinet-in-confidence”. It does not appear to me to be a report of the nature that would have been created specifically for consideration by cabinet or in any way reflect cabinet deliberations. I think that the Assembly will have to look at this again if the government continues to refuse to provide documents such as these when we know that they are overusing the cabinet-in-confidence defence. They are stamping everything cabinet-in-confidence that they do not want in the public domain, that may be somewhat embarrassing or may in some way show flaws in some part of the department.
I think it goes again to the debate we had this morning about the Auditor-General’s funding and the attitude of the Chief Minister to the Auditor-General. He treats scrutiny as the enemy. He treats the Auditor-General as the enemy. He treats bringing light onto a report such as the Ernst & Young review as somehow a danger for his government rather than an opportunity to actually be open and accountable, to try and do things better and to learn, and try to explain to the community why certain changes might be being made. (Second speaking period taken.)
I think the Chief Minister does need to justify why this is cabinet-in-confidence. What is it about this report that makes it cabinet-in-confidence? Was it specially created for consideration by cabinet? I doubt it. What have we actually got for our $400,000-odd worth of taxpayers’ money spent on this report? These are important issues and I think that we need further information.
There is also a recommendation that the Standing Committee on Justice and Community Safety consider as part of their inquiry into freedom of information legislation discussion on the issue of cabinet in-confidence designation for documents. I have no doubt that the committee will consider that and I think that will be a very important review.
We also had the issue of Kingston library, which has been covered I think fairly well by Mr Coe. This is still an issue of concern. We do want to see it work. Some library service in the inner south is better than none. We believe that a full library service, which was in operation, would have been a better way to go. Indeed, it is a pretty inefficient way of doing things when you get it wrong because you do not consult and then you are forced to reopen a library service, having closed one that was in existence.
I think there is concern. Committee members were concerned that the proposed Kingston space is around one-fifth of the size of Dickson library and half the size of Gungahlin library. Of course, that probably goes to library services in Gungahlin as well. I am referring to the fact that Dickson library is far larger than Gungahlin library
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