Page 289 - Week 01 - Thursday, 11 February 2010

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MR RATTENBURY (Molonglo) (11.06): I just offer a few comments in response to Mr Corbell’s most recent intervention. I think the important point to draw out here is that what the Greens seek is to create a culture of unfettered access. It is possible for government, if it wishes, to be open with its documents. We certainly see that in a number of places. For example, in New Zealand the cabinet documents are released to the community quite rapidly after the process. The Welsh parliament has adopted this sort of practice. It is not uncommon for governments to be open with their documents. Some of them go so far as to put their cabinet documents on the internet. That is what unfettered access is about. That is the culture that we think the ACT government should be adopting.

Unfortunately, that is not the culture that the current ACT government adopts. That is why we need a dispute resolution mechanism, because there will be occasions when the government declines to give access to documents, as we have seen on a range of occasions in recent years. Clearly, Mr Corbell’s mode for the week is to verbal what the Greens are saying. He was channelling Mr Stanhope quite effectively on the Islamic library debate last night. It is clearly Labor Party tactics to take what someone is saying and turn it into something else and have no ethical qualms about that. That is the point that Ms Bresnan was making with her proposed amendment and I think it would be fair to take that in the way it was intended.

Question put:

That Ms Bresnan’s amendments be agreed to.

The Assembly voted—

Ayes 10		Noes 7
Ms Bresnan	Ms Hunter	Mr Barr	Ms Porter
Mr Coe	Ms Le Couteur	Ms Burch	Mr Stanhope
Mr Doszpot	Mr Rattenbury	Mr Corbell
Mrs Dunne	Mr Seselja	Ms Gallagher
Mr Hanson	Mr Smyth	Mr Hargreaves

Question so resolved in the affirmative.

Amendments agreed to.

It being 45 minutes after the commencement of Assembly business, the debate was interrupted in accordance with standing order 77. Ordered that the time allotted to Assembly business be extended until the conclusion of this matter.

MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (11.12): I thank the members of the Greens for their support today and I am unsurprised at the objections of the Labor Party to this matter. Because of the past performance of the Labor Party, it is not surprising at all.

However, it was interesting to see the somewhat cut-down demeanour of Mr Corbell today. He has obviously decided that from time to time it is better to be statesmanlike

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