Page 3871 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 30 November 2021
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(a) under arrangements associated with the Information Privacy Act 2014 (ACT) the Australian Information Commissioner exercises some of the functions of the ACT Information Privacy Commissioner, including assessing ACT public sector agencies’ compliance with the Information Privacy Act;
(b) while the Act does not have a mandatory notification scheme, a referral may be made to the Australian Information Commissioner to obtain advice and assistance to determine an appropriate course of action in relation to matters covered by the Act; and
(c) the Special Minister of State has directed the Chief Minister, Treasury and Economic Development Directorate to make a self-referral about this matter to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner and this referral has now been made;
(3) calls on the Government to:
(a) co-operate fully with any investigation the Australian Information Commissioner may choose to initiate in this release of workers compensation data; and
(b) report back to the Assembly on the outcomes of any action, decision or investigation undertaken by the Australian Information Commissioner within three months of receiving advice about this; and
(4) calls on members of the ACT Legislative Assembly to:
(a) declare whether they or their offices accessed the spreadsheet in question before Wednesday, 24 November 2021 and whether they provided copies of this, or web links to it, to any third party external to their offices on or before that date; and
(b) take steps to ensure that any copies of the spreadsheet held by MLA offices are deleted.”.
I commit to keeping members updated on this matter as the government is able to.
MRS JONES (Murrumbidgee) (3.34): I add to this debate because of the health aspect of it but also because I am, quite frankly, stunned by the government’s response to this data breach. If a data breach has occurred, the arrogance of this statement that Mr Steel continues to make, after it has been made perfectly clear that people have been and can be identified by their birth year and the area in which they worked, including the injury which they sustained, is breathtaking, even for this government. That they maintain this position that a data breach may not have occurred is total nonsense. It is very clear to all that people’s privacy has been completely stripped bare by this arrogant government. The release by the government of the details of the confidential workers compensation claims of 30,000 current and former ACT public sector workers dating back to the start of self-government in 1989 is one of the greatest disgraceful behaviours and scandals I have ever seen in this place.
I have met people all weekend at events whose data was in that spreadsheet, and they are appalled. One woman told me it took her two days to get through the Canberra Times article about this matter. It was so traumatic for her, the end of her working life,
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