Page 3096 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 14 August 2012
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recommendations, the government has agreed in principle to one, partially agreed to one and disagreed with one.
With regard to recommendation 11 of the committee’s report, the government could not agree to the lack of public acknowledgement of a costing request. As is noted in the government’s response, apart from the issue of transparency, if there is no public acknowledgement of a request, it will hinder a public servant’s ability to meet his or her non-disclosure obligations under the bill. It is entirely conceivable that a public servant, in fulfilling their obligations to the government, would inadvertently breach the non-disclosure obligations because the public servant was unaware that a costing request even existed. The government considered that this would place public servants in an invidious and unacceptable position.
The government also could not agree to commencing the costing period from the day after the last sitting of the Assembly and has instead proposed that the costing period and the caretaker period align, in large part because the development and administration around the economic parameters to be used for the costings would not be available. It would make more sense to align the costing period at the commencement of the caretaker period when these parameters are known and the public service obligations to government are clear.
Mr Speaker, following my earlier tabling of the government’s response, the government is today introducing the Election Commitments Costing Bill and supporting guidelines. As I have noted, both the bill and the guidelines reflect the government’s response to the committee report. These will provide a strong framework for the 2012 election.
It is important that during the election the roles and responsibilities of public servants and political parties are clear and unambiguous, and for government directorates to be non-partisan and objective.
This bill formalises the process for costing election commitments and allows Treasury and political parties to have a shared understanding of the roles and responsibilities of each body during the election period.
Mr Speaker, the bill allows for costing requests to be made for publicly announced election commitments before polling day and after polling day.
The bill places the responsibility on the political parties to decide whether to instruct Treasury to cost a publicly announced election promise, and in essence the party decides how transparent they will be with the community.
Once Treasury costs a publicly announced election commitment, the costing is to be published on a public website. This will ensure the community is provided with reliable information to allow informed decisions to be made, as well as ensure that everyone is aware that a costing request has been made.
The bill and guidelines also ensure that all MLAs can be confident the information relating to their costing request remains confidential during the election process, free
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