Page 3148 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 22 August 2012
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If the Chief Minister had failed to identify a potential conflict of interest, if the Chief Minister had failed to stand aside, if the Chief Minister had not responded in the way that she did, perhaps there would be an argument. But she did the right thing. She acted ethically and responsibly. She took responsibility for ensuring that matters were appropriately managed once the circumstances came to light. They are the actions of a Chief Minister that we should have confidence in. They are the actions of a Chief Minister who should continue to receive the confidence of this place, because it is this Chief Minister, it is this Minister for Health and it is this Labor government that are making the investment our community needs in the health services for the future of the citizens of the ACT.
MS HUNTER (Ginninderra—Parliamentary Leader, ACT Greens) (12.10): I will start by going to the Companion to the standing orders, which begins the discussion on no-confidence motions with this statement:
The responsibility of the executive to the Assembly is most dramatically evident when the Assembly considers a motion of no confidence in the Chief Minister …
Today in debating such a motion the central question that we are being asked to answer is: do we think that the Chief Minster has lived up to the standard of conduct expected by this parliament? The question is not whether we like her or agree with all her policies. That question is for the people of Canberra at the polls in two months time. The question for us is whether the Chief Minister has met the standard of conduct expected by this place when we give her the responsibility of being the Chief Minister.
What standard do we expect the Chief Minister to meet? Previously we have debated motions of no confidence and censure and I have outlined the tests and standards expected of ministers in this place. It is interesting to note how governments and oppositions across Australia advocate different standards of ministerial responsibility depending on the benches they occupy at the time. The best reference point is the House of Representatives Practice and its reference to the 1976 royal commission into government administration. That report accepts that ministers cannot be responsible for every mistake of their departments, but they must be responsible for their performance and for the systems and policies under which they operate.
There is an obligation to proactively create systems to prevent mistakes and reasonably ensure that there are measures in place to prevent wrongdoing, but this does not extend to a crystal ball, and there must always be a balance between appropriate caution and reasonable innovation. This standard is captured in the tests of personal fault or lack of reasonable diligence. In this case there was no personal fault. The Auditor-General has confirmed this quite unequivocally. So was there reasonable diligence? To answer this question we can look at the Auditor-General’s report, the PricewaterhouseCoopers report and the evidence given to the various committee inquiries. The Greens do not believe a reasonable minister in the position at the time would have created a completely different system from the one that operates across Australia and would have anticipated the comprehensive manipulation that took place by a senior officer.
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