Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 7 Hansard (21 June) . . Page.. 2305 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

There appear to be few restrictions on the release of federal cabinet documents under the 30-year rule as nearly all of the ministers originally involved are no longer in public life or have died. The 30-year period is also sufficiently removed from our current political debate to have much of an influence. Other states have periods of between 25 and 55 years.

Mr Moore believes that this sort of period is too long, and I would agree with this. The Justice and Community Safety Committee report on the bill suggested a six-year period, which I understand, and I know from listening to them now, is the ALP position. However, it appears to me that the committee is suggesting a slightly different approach to the release of these documents than what Mr Moore originally proposed. Rather than having a broad annual release of cabinet documents to anyone who wants to look at them, the committee appears to be suggesting that access to cabinet documents should be treated similarly to access to other government documents under FOI; that is, that documents would only become available if someone specifically applied to see them, and then their disclosure would be subject to the same exemptions that currently apply in the FOI legislation, which could significantly restrict what documents become available and could lead to many disputes over which information is kept secret.

The report noted that in four states cabinet documents more than 10 years old are able to be accessed under FOI legislation with various exemptions. In another state the same arrangement applies to documents over 20 years old.

I understand that Mr Moore is putting up amendments to his bill that basically rewrite it into the form suggested by the committee. The earliest release date is now six years after the document's production and the procedure for accessing documents and determining exemptions from access is based on the FOI Act. Members of the public would have appeal rights to the AAT where access to particular documents is blocked.

The other question that was raised by the committee was whether this bill should be applied retrospectively, as I have already mentioned, so that if the bill were passed all cabinet documents over 10 years would have to be released immediately. Some members of the committee were concerned that the retrospective release of documents could have implications for those politicians and public servants involved at the time who are still in public life.

Personally, I do not see that this is a problem. As Mr Humphries rightly pointed out on Tuesday, ministers, not public servants, have responsibility for cabinet documents. Public servants may very well have written them, but this should have been done under the direction of the minister and it is the minister who presents them to cabinet.

As for protecting the people who were ministers at the time, as I have already said, I think any politician, and particularly a minister, should know that their actions are always subject to public scrutiny and that it is difficult to keep political secrets forever. Our early politicians should, as I already said, have known about FOI and archiving principles.

If we were to make this legislation only apply from today then no cabinet documents would become available for another six or 10 years, and then there may be a gap for many years in the publicly accessible records of the early cabinet documents until

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .