Page 1573 - Week 04 - Thursday, 25 March 2010
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There have been amendments that have been made to the standing orders to ensure that this place functions better and allows non-government members a greater opportunity to contribute to the Assembly processes. The Assembly has now adopted the Latimer House principles in full, as Mr Stanhope mentioned, and these principles describe best practice for the relationship between parliament, the executive and the judiciary and provide guidelines which are designed to ensure protection of the sovereignty of parliament and the independence of the judiciary, two critical components of democratic governance.
We have a new deal and a new process to deal with Assembly calls for documents, which I note may need some further improvement. And that, of course, was the establishment of the independent arbiter. There have been amendments to the Freedom of Information Act. The new campaign advertising review process is now in place, and we have an enhanced committee process.
I also note that there are still outstanding issues that we as a legislature have to address, such as government responses to committee reports. I note that a document that was tabled this afternoon, “Schedule of government responses to committee reports, March 2010”, unfortunately is still showing that 50 per cent of government responses to committee reports are not being delivered within the three months that we believe is the ideal.
The Greens would also like to see improvements to the Human Rights Act compatibility statements. In particular, we would like to see a statement of reasons for those statements, as well as the inclusion of climate change impact statements to accompany bills and greater sustainability reporting for all government expenditure and policy initiatives.
There are many forms of accountability. Providing credible policy alternatives and making the government properly justify policy decisions against alternative policy options are the most effective ways that non-government members can keep the government accountable for their actions.
It is easy to criticise. It is much harder to shrug off that criticism, and people are far more likely to take that criticism seriously if there is a genuine alternative presented alongside it. That is about being future focused, presenting solutions, presenting alternatives.
The Greens have done this. We have at every opportunity been the first ones to raise concerns where we feel proper processes have not been followed or the right outcomes have not been achieved. We have put the Greens’ alternative of what would be a better process or policy outcome on the table.
It is worth making the point that accountability comes in many forms and there are many avenues available to ensure that the government is as open and accountable as it can reasonably be expected to be. It is up to us as members to exploit these mechanisms to the greatest extent possible and, where appropriate, create and adopt new mechanisms.
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