The leader of the ACT Opposition, Jon Stanhope, made a landmark speech last week on the structure and process of government in the territory. He made some pertinent observations about the way some of these processes had been ignored during the past five years. More importantly, he set a benchmark of governmental behaviour to which the Labor Party aspires if it attains government.
A lot of the promises were high-minded statements of principle with which few people could disagree. The test for Mr Stanhope and Labor will not be in the stating of these principles, but rather in the detailing of them and whether he can live up to them if he is elected.
Usually there is only a small window of opportunity for laws and structures to be put in place to make executive Government open and accountable. This is the period of honeymoon immediately after an election before the government has made significant mistakes which it wants to lie about or play down. Mr Stanhope has promised several worthwhile legal and structural changes. These include such things as overhauling the Freedom of Information Act and the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, entrenching the fixed term, reviewing at the ministerial code of conduct and restoring the Public Accounts and Scrutiny of Bills Committees.
Mr Stanhope has promised a return to the more traditional career-based service away from the Government’s model which, at least at the upper level, has been more in tune with a private-sector ethos.
Aside from the structural and legal changes, openness and accountability require political goodwill. Whatever the structure or law, a government bent on cover-up will find a way, even if cover-up can only ever be temporary. Mr Stanhope made the valid point that voters have become disillusioned with politicians and the political process largely because they have seen politicians fail to admit error and fail to accept they are accountable. The irony is that secrecy and cover up are engaged in by politicians in order to retain esteem it in the electorate yet in the long term they do precisely the opposite.
A theme of Mr Stanhope speech was how secrecy in government in the past five years had caused events that had sparked anger in the community. He is quite right on that score. It was refreshing to see Mr Stanhope set such high standards as his benchmark. Because the ACT electorate will be watching to see if he, too, goes the way of all political flesh.
Mr Stanhope acknowledged that there was still a deal of resentment against the very thought of self government in the ACT but he was realistic enough to recognise that it is here to stay and we should make the best of it. ACT voters would be wise to acknowledge that, too. Government in the ACT would perhaps work better if the number of MLAs were increased from 17 to, say, 21. At present, the committee system suffers somewhat from having too few MLAs to draw on. If Mr Stanhope is to fulfill his promise to re-establish the Public Accounts and Scrutiny of Bills Committees he would do well to push for an increase in the number of MLAs. The Liberals and Greens have acknowledged this need. It only requires Labor agreement.
Having set the broad outline of Labor’s position on governance, Mr Stanhope and his team now have several months to flesh out the details. During that time he will also have to persuade the electors that the policies this renewed structure of governance is to deliver reflect their aspirations for the territory
Significantly, Mr Stanhope has now set a clear distinction between Labor and the Government. Now the government will have to articulate its own policies and benchmarks on standards of governance and persuade the electorate that its proposals are equal to or better than Labor’s and that the territory would be better off remaining in their hands.