Page 2432 - Week 06 - Thursday, 23 June 2011
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information management of this so that it adds to open government rather than to confusion. If no work is done, I am sure it is just going to add confusion.
The second point I would like to make is that she does say—and I thank you very much for this, Chief Minister—that the default position is that government information becomes available to the community. This was one of the key points of the Government 2.0 motion. In that, we actually talked about using creative commons licences. I very much hope that the government will answer under what licence they intend to make this available. Do they intend to make it, as you could possibly assume from this, totally copyright free? If not, what licence do they plan to use? I would point Ms Gallagher and the chief information officer, or whoever is going to be implementing this, to the Government 2.0 motion and suggest that they seriously take on board the issues which were discussed in that.
As a whole, I very much welcome this. I hope that, by using this and the guidance that the Assembly gave with the Government 2.0 motion, we will see more open and transparent government, and one which will be better accountable to the citizens of the ACT and produce better outcomes for all concerned.
MR SMYTH (Brindabella) (4.02): I have been here long enough to be able to say that I think I have heard this all before. You can go back to Mr Stanhope’s speech in 2001 where he made exactly the same claim: “We are going to be more honest, more open, more accountable.” And here we are, 11 years later, being more honest, more open, more accountable. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. I am sure all Canberrans—certainly the Canberra Liberals—will be viewing this commitment with a great deal of, let us say, healthy scepticism to start with. But it is open to the Chief Minister to prove her case.
Mr Seselja makes a very good point. There are a number of reports that would inform how this Assembly works and our understanding of what the government is trying to achieve if they were made public. First and foremost, there is the Costello review. The Chief Minister could stand and close this debate now if she wanted to by saying, “I will release the Costello report.” She could stand now and say, for instance, “I will release the Enlighten report for public consumption.” There is nothing commercial-in-confidence inside the Enlighten report, but we are hiding behind commercial-in-confidence because it throws a bad light on the government’s achievements in regard to Enlighten.
Mr Seselja’s starting point is “prove it”. Don’t just say it; prove it. Prove that you are a better leader. Prove that you are not just a continuation of the Jon Stanhope closed government years by doing something positive. If Ms Gallagher was to do that, people might start to take her seriously with regard to the promises that she is making.
Let me look back to the things the Labor Party have promised over the years since they came to office. Here is one of my favourites. It is a code of good government that they put forward in 2001. I want to read a couple of paragraphs. It says:
Labor understands that good government does not bully.
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