Page 1574 - Week 04 - Thursday, 25 March 2010
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To this end, the Greens—and it is included in the ALP-Greens parliamentary agreement—have committed to work to improve the integrity arm of government. Governments, and particularly delegated decision makers, impact on people’s lives in new and different ways all the time. It is essential that accountability mechanisms are maintained, if not enhanced, to ensure they keep pace with government and executive activities.
I note at this point, with some concern, that recently the government and the opposition voted to remove a review mechanism available in the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal without sufficient consideration and policy debate. The Greens moved to ensure that there was a proper consideration of this policy change but unfortunately neither party supported us.
I think we are very fortunate in this country to have constitutionally established judicial review and the established rule of law. I think at times we, as members of the Assembly, adopt a narrow view of government accountability. Indeed, it is our job, as members of this place, to ensure continuance of the well-established principle—and I quote from the UK Cabinet Office, as cited by the High Court of Australia in consideration of these issues:
Each Minister is responsible to Parliament for the conduct of his or her Department, and for the actions carried out by the Department in pursuit of Government policies or in the discharge of responsibilities laid upon him or her as a Minister. Ministers are accountable to Parliament, in the sense that they have a duty to explain in Parliament the exercise of their powers and duties and to give an account to Parliament of what is done by them in their capacity as Ministers or by their Departments.
It is incumbent upon us to ensure that this occurs and it is indeed a matter of the utmost public importance that we do. I have outlined the measures the Greens have implemented to ensure that this occurs and I do not think anyone in the community would doubt that we have a good level of success implementing our initiatives and improving the openness and accountability of this government.
However, the Greens take a much broader view of what open and accountable government should be. As I mentioned earlier, there are many mechanisms for accountability and sometimes the more subtle and often more difficult measures are the most effective in ensuring that the government is accountable for, and the community has the opportunity to evaluate, government actions and policies. Again, I am pleased to have the opportunity to discuss this matter, to reiterate the Greens’ record on this matter and to express my sincere hope that all parties can work constructively together to improve the governance of the territory.
I spoke last night in the adjournment debate about the change in the shape of the Tasmanian parliament now that the Greens will have the balance of power. One of the Greens leaders, Nick McKim, talked about a new era in Tasmania of cooperative politics. I have also spoken about that here in the last few days, that in the ACT, in this Assembly, there are three parties. We are in a new era. This is a new time. We really need to get on and be active participants in cooperative politics, not oppositional politics.
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