Page 5734 - Week 13 - Thursday, 18 November 2010
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Territory Records Office in a positive way. So the opposition does commit to supporting this bill and the amendments.
MS LE COUTEUR (Molonglo) (5.19): The Greens will be supporting the Territory Records Amendment Bill 2010. The Greens is a party that is committed to good governance. Transparency and accountability are key principles of a healthy democracy. These principles are reflected in the way we manage our records and the access we give the public to territory records. This includes both executive records and records from cabinet. Members of the public must have the power to access and scrutinise information from the government to see how decisions were made.
The Greens have always argued for open, accessible and transparent parliamentary rules, conventions and structures. We also want these rules, conventions and structures to keep pace with changing community expectations. We were therefore pleased to see that the review provision in the original Territory Records Act was activated and resulted in the comprehensive review of the act by an independent reviewer, Mr Paul Macpherson. I understand that Mr Macpherson is an eminent records manager and archivist.
I see from the government’s response to this review that it has accepted all the recommendations. Many of these recommendations are now being implemented through this amendment bill. We support these changes which I believe will result in overall improvements to the management of records in the territory. Before I discuss these, I would like briefly to pick up on a point raised by the scrutiny of bills committee in its comments on this bill. The committee raised the question of whether the bill is a justifiable limitation on the right to freedom of expression stated in section 16 of the Human Rights Act, and/or the right to take part in public life stated in section 17.
I draw the Assembly’s attention to these comments because I, and the Greens party, believe very strongly that these rights need to be protected. The Territory Records Act places restrictions on people’s ability to access information. There is always a question of whether these are justifiable limits, and they need to be considered in their full context. For example, how does the complexity of an FOI system impact on people’s opportunity to access information? What is the impact of people’s limited capacity to challenge a government through FOI proceedings, given that they may be unrepresented in an appeal, and the government has such disproportionately large resources? Or what about individuals and community groups who may not be able to pay fees that apply to their attempts to access government records? Many of these are bigger questions about the overall scheme that we operate in the territory through the FOI Act, the records management act and other government policies and instruments.
The bill that we are considering today touches on these rights only in two specific and relatively minor areas. I am pleased to see that the government responded to the scrutiny committee, circulated an amended explanatory statement and proposed amendments which will address these issues.
In regard to a particular issue raised by the committee—that of the new power for the director to transfer records to different jurisdictions—I do note that the review of the
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