Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (12:01:36) — My question is for the Special Minister of State and relates to government transparency and accountability — something I know he is very keen on. Other Australian jurisdictions, including Queensland, New South Wales and the ACT, have policies of open ministerial diaries, where information about the Premier’s and the ministers’ movements and meetings is published online. They are open and accountable to the public. In a parliamentary term where we have had a lot of ethical breaches — and I feel that we have been dogged with this from both sides of Parliament — and in a week where we are likely to be debating strict new donation laws in the house and where the government has also introduced a bill to improve parliamentary standards, I would ask: why has the government not enacted similar reform to ministerial diaries, where this would clearly promote greater transparency?
Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (12:05:39) — Thank you, Minister. I was not going to ask a supplementary but you mentioned the idea of it being nationally consistent, so by way of supplementary I ask: has that issue been raised at any Council of Australian Governments meetings, or will you raise it?
