Page 3006 - Week 08 - Thursday, 25 June 2009
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employment related matters impacting on staff. This enables employees and unions to contribute to the decision-making processes in an open way. The joint council is chaired by the Commissioner for Public Administration. The deputy chair is a member of the joint council nominated by UnionsACT. The joint council comprises the chair and five persons appointed by the commissioner and five persons appointed by the commissioner from persons nominated by UnionsACT. The purpose of the joint council is to provide a forum for the consideration and the open two-way exchange of information on matters of strategic interest in relation to the management of the ACT public service and identify whole-of-government matters of concern to ACT government employees, relevant staff organisations and management, and to collegiately work to address these matters.
Notwithstanding all that has been said here today, it is worth noting, of course, that few decisions of government remain confidential all the time. I would be concerned if any government made secret deals, took decisions in private and hid them from scrutiny. In the ACT, part of the openness of our system of government, and part of the strength of our accountability arrangements, is that decisions made are announced. It is at that stage that the merits of those decisions can and should be debated in the parliament and the press.
While it is clearly in the interests of good government in the ACT, and part of the government’s established practices, it is an entirely different proposition to the expectation of some non-executive members that they will be part of negotiations and part of the government’s decision-making processes. If it becomes known, for example, that the details of commercial negotiations with the ACT government will be conducted in public, and viewed through the prism of political debate, I suggest we will find it very difficult to attract new employers to Canberra and to achieve value for money in our negotiations with our suppliers.
It is manifestly in the public interest that these commercial negotiations take place in private and, indeed, it is as much to protect the commercial interests of companies with whom we negotiate as it is to protect the territory’s interests that we conduct our negotiations in private. That is not to say that the government seeks to hide from scrutiny of its decisions. It is simply to say that while we should always be questioned on our decisions, held to account for those decisions in the Assembly and in the media, we do not serve the ACT’s interests by conducting all of our negotiations in public.
Similarly, we cannot be expected to reveal all of our approaches and strategies for industrial negotiations to achieve service improvements, safeguard working conditions and ensure we remain an attractive employer. It is entirely proper that those negotiations occur in private. In the same vein, our colleagues in other jurisdictions expect that the detail of intergovernmental negotiations ranging from the COAG agenda to interagency memoranda of understanding for services will remain confidential.
Madam Assistant Speaker, I do not think many people in Canberra would find the expectations of confidentiality surrounding government decision-making remarkable. Indeed, they are approaches used every day in the commercial sector and in people’s private lives. The government’s vision for an open, honest and accountable
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