Page 3442 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 17 August 2011
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(d) ensure that all agencies within the public service value complaints consistent with the Commonwealth Ombudsman’s Better Practice Guide to Complaint Handling 2009; and
(e) report back to the Assembly by February 2012.
This motion addresses a range of issues that together form part of the necessary framework for government accountability and the safeguarding of the good administration of government. This motion draws out three separate parts of government accountability and responsiveness that are essential for the good governance of the territory. At the outset, it is important to note that even the best legislative framework will require a positive culture towards transparency and responsiveness. The motion recognises this and proposes that the Assembly and the government recommit to some of the important underpinnings of a modern democracy.
The first particular element that I would like to address is the need for reform of freedom of information legislation. This should be premised on the public right to know and a presumption that the community will be entitled to government information, unless there is a clear public interest in preventing that disclosure in the particular circumstances of the particular document concerned. It is not because of the government’s good graces that the community should be informed about what is happening, what is being done with public money and why the government is making the decisions that it is. Again, I emphasise that all the independent reports into this issue, particularly the Solomon review, found that there should be a single public interest test and there should not be any exemptions on the basis of the class that a document may fall into.
Recently the Chief Minister has indicated that the government will become—
MR ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Mr Hargreaves): Order, members! Stop the clocks. Chief Minister, Mr Smyth, would you have your conversation out of the chamber, please? Mr Smyth, your voice is too loud. Those members of the opposition who are having a conversation, please move outside. I am waiting, guys. We will not resume debate until you have either concluded or you move. Thank you. Ms Hunter, you have the floor.
MS HUNTER: Thank you. Recently the Chief Minister has indicated that the government will become more transparent and open and adopt many of the reforms adopted as part of other freedom of information reforms in other jurisdictions and recommended by the JACS committee. Whilst we of course very much welcome this commitment by the government, it should be underpinned by legislative reform and the government should respond to the JACS committee report before the next sitting so we can then proceed with the necessary legislative reform. I was very pleased to see that reforms to the FOI laws are listed on the spring sitting program.
Of course, there is more to openness than FOI and in addition to the two points about complaints handling, both from within the public service and from the community, I would make the point that other secrecy laws and Gov 2.0 also provide significant options for reform that would improve open government. This issue was considered extensively by the Australian Law Reform Commission in 2009 and their report,
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