SPEECH BY THE PRIME MINISTER, MR E. G. WHITLAM, M. P.,
AT THE OPENING OF THE AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT PUBLICATIONS AND
INQUIRY CENTRE, PITT STREET, SYDNEY, FRIDAY 26 APRIL 1974
One of the great themes that led to the election of the
Australian Labor Party in 1972 was the need for a new openness in
Government. For too long before we came into office, Australian
Governments had operated on the assumption that they knew best,
that the people had no right to be kept fully informed of their
activities. For too long Government decisions had been taken against
a background of secrecy. The people weren't given the facts to
enable them to judge adequately the worth or otherwise of official
decisions which could have momentous, and even tragic, results
for the community. No issue has symbolised this failure in the last
decade more than Vietnam. The people weren't told the whole truth
about this bloody and mistaken war. Yet despite the absence of
Government honesty and frankness, their sons were sent to fight
in that quagmire, to be wounded-and some cases killed.
The failure to communicate with the people took many other
forms. All too often, our predecessors suppressed documents and
reports on which their actions were based, all too often they delayed
the publication of these documents for into intolerable periods.
Their purpose was clear: to prevent the people from having a
proper chance to evaluate their performance.
My party, my Government has been determined to reverse
the secret practices of the past. In my policy speech in 1972 I said:
" We want the Australian people to know the facts, to khow the needs,
to know the choices before them. We want them always to help us as
a government to make the decisions and to make the right decisions."
To achieve this objective, I pledged that a key channel for
communication between the Parliament and the people would be a number
of expert commissions making regular reports and recommendations
on new spending. I made it clear that we would promptly publish
their findings, so that all interested people could know what was
proposed and comment upon those proposals.
On this, as on the rest of the program which I outlined
in my 1972 policy speech, the Government has sought to do what it
promised. In the last 17 months, a number of special bodies have
been established to examine and deal with the needs of Australia
and Australians over a wide range of activities. The Schools Commission,
for example, has been the agent for the transformation of education
in Australia. The Hospitals and Health Services Commission has
provided a framework for a new Commonwealth involvement to meet the
health needs of the community. The Social Welfare Commission has
begun the mammoth task of meeting and co-ordinating social services
throughout the country. As these and other new bodies have reported
to the Government, we have promptly tabled their findings in the
Parliament. We have made it possible for the people to be fully aware
of their recommendations and the reasons behind them. In the first
year alone, 39 reports on inquiries instituted by the Government were
presented to the Parliament, not including reports from Parliamentary
Committees or reports on inquiries instituted by the previous
government.
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We have proved ourselves as the first Government in a
generation to be frank with the people. We have been the first
Government in a generation to share our decisions and the reasons
for them openly with the whole community. We pledge to continue
on that path, to persevere in the creation of a new tradition of
openness in Government.
In the last week our opponents have suddenly discovered
the words " open government". This discovery has come in the midst
of their rush to produce a brace of policies so that they can pretend
that they have a coherent program. Their spokesmen have promised
that they would publish " wherever practicable" reports, reviews
and other materials concerning Government decisions. Just what does
" wherever practicable" mean? On their past performance it would
mean nothing more than that they would publish such documents only
when it suited their purpose, only when they would face no embarrassment,
only when their decisions had been made and foisted on the community.
I defy anyone to believe that such words have any more meaning,
coming from the same men who suppressed one Government report for
years. In 1958 the Liberal-Country Party Government received the
report of the Morshead Committee on the re-organisation of the
Defence group of departments. A succession of Liberal-Country Party
leaders refused to publish that report. It was finally tabled on
the 30th May 1973 by the Labor Minister for Defence. The parties
that talk so much about the defence needs of Australia weren't prepared
to share with the public vital documents on the administrative needs
of this area. The parties who now expect you to believe that they
want open government for 15 years cloaked that report in secrecy. They
are no more credible when they talk of open government than they are
when they pull out of the hat any of their other hasty and
ill-considered policies.
The only Government that can be trusted when it makes such
a pledge is the present one. It made that pledge 17 months ago and
it has stood by it. If people want the opportunity to share knowledge
and information with the National Government, they have only to give
us a fair chance to continue to honour that pledge.
Open government, of course, must mean more than simply
tabling documents in Parliament and then printing them. It is
vital to our democracy that that be done. But we must go further than
that. The present Government has recognised that there are many
interested and concerned people who will still never have the chance
to see and study those documents if we do not give them wider
dissemination. Many people are not familiar enough with the processes
of Government to know how to get a copy of a government report if it
is only available in Canberra. We want to ensure that Government
publications are not confined to the highly educated, the highly
informed or people with established contacts with Government. If a
Government publication is of interest to any person or group, then the
access to that person or group to that document should not depend on
education or wealth or influence. / 3
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Similarly, in areas beyond publications, we want to
enable all people to know what the Government is doing, to know
what services are available to them. It is no use if the Government
provides a service and no-one is aware of its existence. Our
predecessors' Health Insurance Subsidy Scheme for low-income earners
is an excellent example of a service of which the very people whom
it was supposed to help overwhelmingly remained ignorant. The
subsidy was supposed to be available; only 4 in every 100 people
who should have been eligible for it received any benefit from it..
That is the importance of this Government P ublications
and Inquiries Centre. By establishing the Centre the Government is
taking the initiative to provide readily accessible means for people
to know what it is doing.
The necessity of getting government to the people is not
unique to Australia. Britain tackled it during the last war by
establishing Citizens Advice Bureaux, Canada has for several years
had a network of regional Inquiry Centres; the United States has
information centres operating in major cities. So last year when
the Australian Government approved a proposal of the Minister for
the Media ( Senator Douglas McClelland) to set up Publications and
Inquiry Centres in the cities and main provincial areas, it was
answering a need to bridge a knowledge gap of Australians.
It should be clear that this centre fulfills two separate
functions. Publications of the Australian Government are sold here
at the lowest price to clear only overheads and publishing costs.
The bookshops are also selling agents for the publications of other
governments. The Inquiry Centre is a different matter. It provides
services free. The public is invited to submit enquiries personally
or by telephone about any aspect of Australian Government activity.
It is not expected that final answers may be provided for all questions
at the centre. Many of the simpler ones can be dealt with on the spot,
but where specialised knowledge is required the inquiry officer will
ref er to an appropriate contact of ficer in the Department concerned f or
the answer. Should the inquiry be more complex, a Central Reference
Unit which is being established in Canberra will search out the
information and return it back to the Inquiry Office by telex or
telephone. The first publications and inquiry office began operating
last year in Canberra. Since then Adelaide and Perth have been added.
After Sydney will come Brisbane, Hobart, Melbourne and Darwin. They
will be extended to the major provincial areas including Albury-
Wodonga, Newcastle, Wollongong, and Townsville. Until these
provincial centres are established, mobile bookshops and Inquiry Centres
are being commissioned to tour rural areas. The first is ready for the
road now. Some of the capital cities including Sydney and Melbourne
have had Government Bookshops for up to six years. But until now they
have not been street level operations designed to engender the
greatest public interest. The relocated shops have immediately shown
sales increases of between 150 and 250 per cent. This alone points
up the need of the public for better access to Government affairs. / 4
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The inquiry function is also being widely utilised. The
established centres are each already handling more than 30 inquiries
daily and when fully operative the network is expected to deal with
over half a million requests for information by telephone,
correspondence or personal applications in a year.
This new Centre will provide the public in Sydney with
a convenient point of initial contact and is real evidence of our
initiatives towards open government.