Page 622 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 11 February 2009
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To preserve and promote individual ministerial responsibility—
incoming ministerial briefing books (“red/blue books”)—
as they are known in Queensland—
for when a Minister is appointed to the portfolio;
annual parliamentary estimates briefs for when the Minister must account to Parliament for the ministerial portfolio’s past and planned expenditure of parliamentary appropriations; and
parliamentary question time briefs … for when the Minister must account to Parliament in question time,
… should be exempt from disclosure under FOI.
That is the recommendation of Solomon, and that is the recommendation that the government believes should be adopted here in the Assembly.
I think the Assembly is presented with the very real risk that ministers will become less informed of the circumstances or the operations of their portfolios if FOI provisions apply to these documents. That is backed up by the experience in New Zealand, where it has become clear that departmental officials are less willing to put down in writing advice to their ministers on sensitive or politically contentious matters if there is the prospect that they will be released through FOI. As a consequence, ministers are not always as well advised as they should be on these matters and they are less able to account to the parliament accordingly.
There is a balance between the operation of FOI laws and the ability of the executive to conduct its business in such a way that ministers are well informed on matters. If this Assembly agrees that the cabinet notebook should be exempt, then it is illogical to say that other briefings provided to ministers for the purposes of accounting to parliament should not be exempt. That presents some real challenges.
The government is concerned about proposals that would allow those documents to be made public. There are good public interest reasons why they should not, and I have outlined those in brief today, but I draw members’ attention to the Solomon review in Queensland and the quite rational and detailed discussion that occurred around those matters.
The other provision in Mrs Dunne’s legislation which is of concern relates to a provision which would remove conclusive certificates in relation to section 34 of the Freedom of Information Act dealing with commonwealth-state relations, which can include matters of a security nature which do not meet the threshold requirements of the provisions of section 37A of the Freedom of Information Act. The government is of the view that there will be matters, particularly matters that may be associated with security issues, which are communicated in confidence by the commonwealth, a state or a territory to the territory, that require a higher protection than merely an exemption.
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