Govt secrecy slated

Press, 11 August 1979, Page 9

Govt secrecy slated

I PA Wellington “Something is seriously wrong not only with environmental procedures but i also with democracy," the I Labour member for Parliai ment for Auckland Central 1 (Mr Richard Prebble) has I told a forum on environmental procedures, at Victoria University, Wellington.

He referred to the police investigation of the alleged leaking of Cabinet minutes on electricity forecasting and the secrecy surrounding petrocorp proposals on a petrochemical industry. He said the Opposition had come to know about these proposals only when the Environmental Defence Society had released a letter.

“How can we have an intelligent debate when information is suppressed?” he asked. “Our system is a gloss and the reality does not exist. There are no real safeguards to the environment.”

Mr Prebble is a member of the Labour Party’s caucus committee on the environment.

The Minister for the Environment (Mr V. S. Young) told the forum that the fact that environmental procedures had been streamlined in the 1977 Town and Country

Planning Act did not mean that they had been shortcircuited.

He said the question of delay was one of the key issues in environmental procedures. “Eventually decisionmust be made: the final step must be a decision.” he said. “Unfortunately some groups want to use the proceudres to delay a final decision.”

Later, ansering a question on the availability of information, Mr Young referred to Mr Prebble’s

comment on the Official Secrets Act covering the leaking of Cabinet minutes and said, “That must remain illegal. We cannot have the press at Cabinet meetings.” Several of Mr Young’s statements, particularly on forestry, drew dissenting comments from the audience but he was applauded at the end when one of the organisers thanked him for attending and being “one of die few Ministers, ever to come to a campus.”