Page 577 - Week 02 - Thursday, 22 February 2018
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(d) information provided; and
(e) any other relevant matter; and
(2) the inquiry should hold public hearings and explore the effectiveness of citizens’ juries, what lessons can be learned from conducting the CTP jury and whether the process adhered to best practice.
The citizens jury on compulsory third-party insurance is really the first time this type of deliberative democracy has been trialled here in the territory. This means it is very important that the ACT government get it right, especially when the ACT government has pretty much signed up to the verdict of the jury regardless of what that verdict is and with real doubt and ambiguity in this Assembly about what process has been undertaken to get to that point.
Of course, the Canberra Liberals support effective community engagement and consultation and believe that it is important to determine whether this citizens jury process has delivered on its purported benefits or whether it can be improved. The use of deliberative democracy strategies is an element of the Labor-Greens parliamentary agreement. However, the citizens jury should not be pursued or used as a political tool. Canberrans deserve sincere and objective engagement and a model that adheres to best practice.
The opposition does not have confidence that the jury process has been conducted fairly. That is not to say that we believe that it has been done unfairly but we simply do not have the confidence one way or the other. There is too much doubt about this process. We in the opposition would be negligent in our scrutiny of policy and scrutiny of government if we did not ask these questions.
I am amazed that we have a government that has outsourced this policy area to the jury without even running it by the Assembly first. The government does not seem to want to have any scrutiny of this process. When you have a government that does not want scrutiny of their policy process, that is cause for alarm. It is prudent that a thorough inquiry be conducted and that there be a report on the processes surrounding the jury’s development and performance, especially if the ACT government is going to sign up to it regardless of the outcomes.
The purpose of my motion today is to determine whether the processes adhere to best practice. It is not an extension of the debate on whether the current CTP scheme needs to be reformed. This is not about the policy area. It is about the process the government has undertaken, a process that has largely been secretive. Whilst the jurors have seen the entire process, the vast majority of Canberrans have not and we in the Assembly have not been privy to the processes for things such as the procurement, the information that has been shared, how the jurors were selected, what discussions went into when the jury would meet, the format for those presentations and, of course, how the actual deliberations will occur.
I understand that the Greens have concerns with the motion today. We were advised earlier today that the Greens’ concerns relate to having scrutiny of this process before the jury had delivered its verdict. To that end, I am more than happy to move an
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