Page 285 - Week 01 - Thursday, 11 February 2010
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important roles of the crossbench and opposition parties is to hold the executive to account. Doing so requires a degree of cooperation from ministers and their departments.
The Greens believe that government should be accountable to the people and that an effective government should have nothing to fear from having its dealings scrutinised by members in this place. This is reflected in our policy, in our agreement with the Labor Party and in the actions of the Greens in the hundreds of committee appearances we have made in this Assembly. It is to this end that the Greens support the underlying principles presented in Mrs Dunne’s motion and will support the motion, with some alterations which I will move later.
Access to documents and witnesses is central to the ability of committees to make reasoned and thorough reports on the performance and actions of the government. Denying prompt access has a twofold effect. Firstly, it undermines the credibility of committee reports as they are based on less than perfect information. Secondly, it prevents comprehensive scrutiny of government and permits the possibility of inefficiencies and problematic practices to go undiscovered for longer.
We believe that, if the government are performing as well as they will inevitably claim that they are, they should be fearless about providing unrestricted access to documents and witnesses. It is only if the government wishes to conceal its actions, for whatever reason, be it fear or shame, that they will seek to exercise control over a committee’s access to witnesses and documents. We have seen regrettable examples of delays and obstruction by the government recently, particularly in regard to the AMC inquiry and to some extent with the school closures inquiry.
The ACT Greens and, we believe, the Canberra Liberals have not accepted the reasons for the hindrances of access to information to relevant committees. For this reason, we will be supporting Mrs Dunne’s motion, with some amendments which I will move later, and we will not be supporting Mr Corbell’s amendment.
MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (10.51): In relation to Mr Corbell’s amendment, the Liberal opposition will not be supporting the amendment today. The Liberal opposition will not be supporting the amendment put forward by the attorney today, mainly on the track record—and that has been touched on by Ms Bresnan in her comments—of this government.
It was highlighted as recently as yesterday and the previous day when the minister claimed to have had in his possession information which would have materially impacted and perhaps even changed the outcome of a committee inquiry. But, when challenged about what he did with that information and why that information was not forthcoming, he came up with a whole range of excuses which did not take into account, for instance, that it was clearly known that most of the conduct of the inquiry in relation to the AMC had been conducted in camera because of the commercial sensitivity of most of the information provided, because there was the likelihood of ongoing litigation.
If the minister had been really committed to openness, he could have approached the committee and said: “I have some other information that may be of relevance to you.
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