SKY WON’T FALL DOWN IF CABINET PAPERS RELEASED AFTER 30 DAYS SO LET’S BE TRANSPARENT MINISTERS WILL STILL BE ABLE TO DISAGREE, CONTEST PROPOSALS AND MAKE FINAL DECISIONS WITHOUT REVEALING
DISAGREEMENTS, WRITES RICK SNELL
Tasmanian politicians need to support independent MP Kristie Johnston’s parliamentary motion to release most cabinet documents within 30 days of a cabinet decision.
It is time for parliament to ensure that the management of government information enters the 21st century in a way that will equip the state to confront the economic and social problems that affect us.
Tasmanians have been denied access to high-quality, relevant, timely information and evidence about major projects and critical policy programs.
Whether it is the building of critical infrastructure, major environmental challenges or the out- of-the-blue abolition of a major government agency, people deserve to be able to judge the merits of key decisions, ask the right questions, evaluate the answers and/or propose alternatives using the same information.
If a key policy has not been considered by cabinet, the public has a right to know that it has skipped the required checks and balances. The heart of the Westminster system – cabinet confidentiality – will be preserved if
briefing papers are released. Ministers will still be able to disagree, contest proposals and make final decisions without revealing internal disagreements.
Allowing the public, parliamentarians and the media access to information may from time to time embarrass, contradict or undermine the political spin of governments and/or their senior public servants. That is democracy.
The sky has not fallen down nor has the Westminster system collapsed where cabinet briefing papers have been made available.
The cabinet handbook sets high thresholds for the information and proposals to be placed before cabinet. Tasmanians should be able to regularly confirm that standard has been achieved.
Regular and immediate transparency can only bolster greater faith in the impartiality and objectivity of the upper echelons of the public service. The periodic release of information will prove and improve the fearless and frank advice given to the government of the day.
Faulty or incomplete information and evidence given to cabinet will be detected and corrected sooner.
How many millions of dollars and months could have been saved if a member of the public could have shown the cabinet approval process for the Spirits of Tasmania miscalculated the length of the wharf, the impact of missing fenders and the need for specialised gantries?
There is the clear suspicion, outside the government and the senior public service, that too often advice and evidence is constructed either by a compliant public service and/or designed to only provide the advice that
the government and its advisers want to hear.
Similarly, ministerial or spin-doctor thought bubbles and off-the-cuff policy announcements are
retrospectively supported and contradictory advice is either not sought or fails to be adequately canvassed.
Ms Johnston’s proposal to regularly release cabinet information will help protect those who are willing and
able to give their superiors and the government uncomfortable advice.
Public policy debate and discussions in Tasmania might transform from an exchange of bland and insipid Assertions of “trust us” countered by “we don’t trust you” and accusations of secrecy and cover-ups into a more
informed discourse.
In the responses to her motion, there will be a few who will warn that the exposure of high-level cabinet papers will have a chilling effect on public servants, especially at lower levels, preventing the consideration and investigation of a full range of options at an early stage in the decision-making process.
By the time a proposal reaches cabinet, those options should have been fully tested, considered and weeded down to the most desirable or necessary.
Releasing cabinet documents after 30 days is a vital step in getting Tasmania’s transparency system back on track.
Rick Snell is an Adjunct Professor in law at UTAS and co-author of Getting Back on Track: Independent Review of Tasmania’s Right to Information Framework.