Cabinet transparency

[2.32 p.m.]

Ms BURNET (Clark) - Honourable Speaker, I rise to speak in support of Ms Johnston's motion because transparency and accountability is a key plank to democracy. The Getting Back on Track report by professors Snell and McCormack was important and I will speak to that later.

Section 3(1)(c) of the Right to Information Act states that information collected by public authorities is collected for and on behalf of the people of Tasmania and is the property of the state. As a fundamental principle, that information should and must be released in the public interest and what this motion does is to require proactive disclosure of information underpinning the decision-making of Cabinet and government.

I want to speak to the Attorney-General's response. He has fallen back on upholding the Westminster system, how well that has worked and how it is under threat, and that any reform would be burdensome to establish. To quote the Attorney-General from his speech, he said, 'We must be careful not to add layers and layers of bureaucracy and cost'. If that isn't code for, 'We don't want to go down this path and we'll have to be dragged kicking and screaming', I don't know what is.

The Attorney-General's arguments about the sanctity of the Westminster system being under threat should be called out. It is a red herring, a fallacious and limited argument, and goes to what is at the heart of the problem in Tasmania: the government is fearful of transparency.

The justification for Cabinet confidentiality is that it enables fulsome debate and discussion about the decisions by Cabinet members. A testing of ideas, it's meant to encourage MPs to speak their mind in these debates without fear of political backlash by an opposition wanting to highlight divisions within Cabinet. It relies on a similar public interest logic to the confidentiality that applies to patient/doctor or lawyer/client and husband/wife communications. No-one is arguing that, and Ms Johnston's motion is certainly not arguing that Cabinet confidentiality is under threat. In fact, what it does is improve processes.

Let's take the example of the recent Marinus Link advice. The whole-of-state business case for Marinus Link was prepared by Treasury to advise Cabinet of the facts of this project and clearly identified risks with great clarity. This report was prepared in the full knowledge that the Minister for Energy and Renewables had promised to disclose it to the public 30 days prior to any final decision made on this project. It is perhaps the best most recent example that directly rebuts the government's concerns.

I suggest that those who haven't read that document should. Chapter 10 is telling in particular, and it presents a very stark warning of the risks this project presents. It would be interesting to know if Cabinet ministers have read this. At page 366, it says:

The level of returns to government in any one year is exposed to a range of risks and highly dependent on a number of factors, including the final project, cost outcomes, regulatory processes, the highly volatile and dynamic energy market, broader energy policy and market reforms, and the business' financial position and profitability inherent with Marinus Link.

Returns to government are likely to be more volatile and the government's exposure to the energy sector increases present a range of challenges for the government, including unpredictable revenue streams, making it challenging for the government to plan and execute its budget effectively; credit risk, as the government may face increased borrowing costs and investor scrutiny due to higher debt levels and if the government energy businesses are perceived to have higher risks to their financial sustainability and position; and pressure from industry and the public to provide financial support due to increases in wholesale energy prices and network charges.

These are not the words of a fearful public service. The only chilling effect this reform might have is on the ministers themselves, who will be exposed to greater scrutiny to defend decisions they are making.

The recent independent review of the RTI regime entitled Getting Back on Track was negotiated by the JLN members in the last parliament and completed last year by Professor McCormack and Professor Rick Snell, who are the reviewers. Their review was given to the government in September and publicly released around December. The government has now responded to recommendations and is supporting some, but there will be no information commissioner or release of Cabinet documents, so the response has been mixed and somewhat underwhelming. There will be no new funding and if you don't resource properly then you don't shift the dial on the existing problems of not having a well-funded ombudsman or new position of information commissioner, as I stated.

Interestingly, the reviewers did not make sweeping recommendations to the reform of the act, so the act is robust. Rather, the concerns they highlighted were with the way in which the act is administered within the departments and the culture of noncompliance, of ignorance, that has evolved. That is true for anybody who puts in RTI requests and gets a whole lot of redacted pages back with no information, if they get it back at all and in a timely manner.

Honourable Speaker, this is an important motion for this parliament. It takes us forward. It will require time for changes to be made and it will uphold the confidentiality of Cabinet and will be a fillip for democracy in this House. I commend the motion.