We need a responsive, accountable and transparent government
We are repeatedly seeing bad outcomes from poor process of governance. The community needs to reclaim its government. Typically, we get told one thing but the actions that follow do not match the words.
The Pepper Inquiry reinforced this issue of the need for transparency many times in their report and like many key aspects of that report the NT Government has ignored them.
- FOI laws need to be strengthened.
- ICAC needs to be fully funded and resourced.
- Positions like fair trade ombudsman, health ombudsman need to be empowered and better resourced.
- Scrutiny committee processes need to be reinstated and expanded.
- Remove “corruption clause” from legislation
The clause reads “Unless otherwise expressly provided, in making a decision under this Act and stating the reasons for that decision, the Minister is not required to specify how the Minister considered or applied these principles”. This is not acceptable.
Too many poor outcomes come from inadequately explored implications of policy, often outcomes are counterproductive. If there is an open and proper consultation process around these things then many of the bad outcomes, including massive cost issues can be identified and avoided.
The robodebt royal commission highlighted the extreme consequences of no accountability and public servants delivering projects at the behest of their political masters. In the NT we have similar problems and a suite of consequences that mean the community is being ignored and not getting the outcomes they should.
As an example, the Pepper inquiry report recommendations were very strong on the need for transparency. Sadly, this transparency has not been delivered, in fact after the last election the Scrutiny committee and other transparency elements were downgraded.
This has continued a sad history of the community being deliberately kept in the dark by successive CLP and Labor governments.
We need the proponents of projects to pay for the required process and an independent source, managed by Government or an independent authority, to do the actual work, as per Pepper recommendations.
Another example is the extraordinary lengths the NT Government has undertaken to pretend the Middle Arm development proposal wasn’t all about gas.