Page 2137 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 21 June 2011
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and community stakeholders to develop the plan, and the plan itself includes quite detailed information about the drivers of infrastructure demand and the kind of long-term vision and future directions for infrastructure.
The government places great importance on the need to be open and transparent through regular reporting to support accountability in government. As it should be, we consider ourselves to be accountable to the people of the ACT. There are a range of practical manifestations of this government’s commitment to openness and transparency to support accountability. For example, the government’s commitment is clearly evident in its annual reporting. In the coming weeks, I will make the government’s third report on progress in implementing the Canberra plan, towards our second century, and I am pleased to foreshadow to you today that the news is good.
Another example of our commitment to accountability to the community is the ACT government agencies’ annual reports. These are made public and provided to the Assembly. Annual reports are a great mechanism to support accountability in government. Indeed, the annual reports process that the Assembly goes through ensures that those reports are thoroughly investigated, and the government fully participates in that process.
As foreshadowed in the notice paper on Thursday, I will have further discussions around the government’s reform agenda and approach to openness and accountability. I am certainly open to any ideas that other members may have—if they have any, other than just criticising the government—to look at and examine areas where we can improve the community’s access to government information and improve our openness and accountability processes.
MS HUNTER (Ginninderra—Parliamentary Convenor, ACT Greens) (5.15): I think it would be fair to say that if you were listening to the Assembly this afternoon, you would be aware that we have a new Chief Minister, and the Canberra Liberals cannot quite get enough of her. Anyway, going to the matter of public importance, the importance of openness and transparency in government is a vital issue for the good governance of any jurisdiction the world over. That, of course, includes the ACT. Secretive governments do not serve their citizens well.
Given the importance of the issue, it is somewhat unfortunate that the opposition seem to trot this out when they cannot think of anything better. This is the third time we have discussed this matter in the last two years.
Mr Hanson: Is this a bid for a minister’s job?
MS HUNTER: What I would like to say, Mr Hanson, is that it is really good to see that the Canberra Liberals are committed to recycling, but I think you are going a tad too far on this one. Let us go back and have a look at this.
Mr Doszpot interjecting—
MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Doszpot, you have had your say.
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