Opposition Leader Leanne Castley MLA brought a motion calling on the ACT Government to release a number of documents pertaining to health expenditure from the caretaker period before last year’s election.

This motion was brought in response to Labor’s recent health budget blowout, which did not come to light until after the election. Thomas believes that transparency is key to a healthy democracy, and is keen to interrogate the documents in question, but was concerned that the significant volume of documents captured by the motion would pose an unreasonable and impracticable burden on ACT Public Service resourcing. 

He also considered the provision of documents that went beyond the issue of health expenditure to be unnecessary to achieve the intended outcome of the motion and so proposed amendments to narrow the scope of documents requested, in the hopes of gaining support for the necessary elements of Ms Castley’s motion to pass.

Thomas successfully negotiated multipartisan support for a practical solution requiring the ACT Government to produce documents relevant to the health expenditure issue, which was reflected in an amendment moved by the Chief Minister and accepted unanimously by the Assembly.