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CRAIG COMMENTS |
Keeping on top of the paper warfare
Wednesday 7th November 2007
The most recent sitting of State Parliament last week was a good example of what is not healthy with our democracy. The deliberate ploy of government flooding the house with parliamentary papers, documents and annual reports; the State Parliament being used inappropriately as a federal election weapon; and a Liberal dose of hypocrisy on the channel deepening project, with members from both sides of politics attempting the precarious position of walking along the barbed wire fence with one leg stuck on either side.
Report week comes about each year as most annual reports from government agencies have dates when they are required to be completed, presented and ultimately tabled by. Over the past few years, we have seen the opposition making mileage on the number of reports that are tabled on the one day or sitting week yet, as most watchers of politics would know, the same practice seems to haunt whoever is in power.
Annual reports contain various sorts of information and the scrutiny of these reports is just part of holding the government accountable for its spending and performance. In the past week, the annual reports and other papers that have attracted attention related to the gambling industry, the health sector, the grand prix, water authorities and countless others totalling over 500 for the week. No opposition party or media outlet, let alone an individual, can adequate scrutinise that amount of material in this space of time before it becomes old news. So a range of smaller sins of government are overshadowed by the practice.
Oppositions criticise this practice, but they all do the same thing. Why? Because openness and accountability are a luxury of opposition and seldom really practiced in government.
This government (and future governments) must change the way reports are presented. They must stagger the presentation over a number of sitting weeks if they are really committed to accountability and scrutiny of government agencies and other parliamentary documents.
One of the other interesting activities in Parliament last week was the release of the Minister for Planning’s report on the supplementary environmental effects statement on channel deepening, which coincided with the debate on legislation on ports allowing the setting of fees, dealing with exclusion zones and allowing dredging and the dumping of spoil.
As is often the way in Parliament, this discussion was intense and focussed on the channel deepening proposals.
Opposition was extreme and lead to comments like “The reality is that this is one of the most draconian pieces of legislation ever placed before this Parliament”. Yet, at the end of the debate, the legislation was passed without a solitary vote for “no”. I am sure that the local papers on the Peninsula will contain many comments about how strongly their local members fought against the proposals, but will say nothing about the silence when it came to putting their opinions on the line.
The State Parliament is scheduled to sit once more before the federal election and this historically is the most poorly behaved time in state parliament, with both sides using the time to score federal political points. Let’s hope that the real debate is on some of the important legislation that is currently before the house, like:
Copies of parliamentary documents, annual reports and forthcoming legislation can be obtained from the Office of Craig Ingram MP, 143 Main Street, Bairnsdale.
