Page 4925 - Week 13 - Thursday, 12 November 2009
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
To date, when we have tried to get to the bottom of it there has always been this “trust the government” approach: trust the government and they will give it to us. And at every turn they have done their best to hide the information—not to provide the information, not to give all of the information that is needed.
Then we get to the situation of the referral to the ICRC by the minister. It is worth reflecting on how that happened. We had a press release last Friday from the Greens saying that there would be a motion in the Legislative Assembly this week, calling on the government to refer the Cotter Dam back to the Independent Competition and Regulatory Commission. And on the same day there was a letter to the minister from the Greens, from Mr Rattenbury, saying:
As I have indicated the Greens intend to introduce a motion into the Legislative Assembly … to make this request of you as minister. However, I understand that it is possible for you to make a referral to review the price determination without the need for an Assembly motion.
Should you do this, I would appreciate receiving a copy of the letter and the terms of reference that you have sent to the commissioner.
So, even in not accepting an inquiry, even in not accepting the argument that there should be scrutiny in this place—that we as elected representatives have a role in scrutinising government, in scrutinising ministers, in scrutinising territory-owned corporations, in scrutinising this process—there has not been an open process to discuss that. There has not been a debate in the Assembly on the ICRC and the referral to the ICRC. Instead, again we have this situation where the Greens trust the government to set the terms of reference. They trust the government to essentially set the terms by which the government will be investigated, by which the government’s failure will be investigated.
Why is it that we are bending over backwards, it would seem, to ensure that we do not get the maximum possible scrutiny? In saying that this was going to happen, that there would be a motion in the Assembly about it, why wouldn’t the motion have been moved so we could have debated the terms of reference, rather than simply doing the deal outside of the Assembly, contrary to what was put out in the public, contrary to the public statements which were made on the issue? Why is it that there is such a desperation, it seems, to avoid accountability on this issue?
We come back to the fact that this is the largest cost blow-out in the territory’s history. Why is there the idea that the Assembly should somehow not inquire into the largest cost blow-out in the territory’s history? We have looked into many things in this place, many of which were very important, but it would be difficult to argue, it would be difficult to make a reasoned case, that many of the things we have inquired into in the last 12 months were more important than this issue. It is unsustainable to make the argument that the Assembly should not be looking at these things in detail in an open inquiry. Instead, we see these constant attempts—we have seen it right through the process, right through from the watering down of the motion to the briefings—to avoid scrutiny.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video