Page 664 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 11 February 2009
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It is very interesting that the Queensland inquiry, the Solomon inquiry, suggests that estimates briefings should be an exempt class of documents. We have to remember that it is only very recently that the Queensland parliament actually had an estimates committee. So they are probably not used to being inquired into in the same way as people in the commonwealth parliament or people in this parliament have had their budget inquired into. I am not surprised that ministers in Queensland may find it inconvenient to have their estimates briefs inquired into.
But we are of a different sort here. This is not Queensland; this is not Joh territory; this is the ACT, one of the most progressive jurisdictions—as we keep being told, the most progressive jurisdiction—in the country. So I am not entirely sure why, on one recommendation from one inquiry, which has not even been taken up by the Queensland government—it is still a recommendation from an inquiry—we should go down this path.
Again, if the body of evidence as a result of the inquiry in this jurisdiction about the application of the FOI Act in this jurisdiction points to this as a necessary course of action, I commit that the Canberra Liberals will reconsider their position. But at the moment the minister has not given us one reason, except that it would be more convenient.
This issue is actually addressed in the Moss inquiry, the right-to-know inquiry. These issues were addressed there. The whole issue of frank and fearless advice is a bit of a furphy here. It was interesting, in his comments previously, the attorney implied that the principles of the FOI Act upheld the notion of frank and fearless advice from officials. There is a lot of convention and understanding about the need for frank and fearless advice in the Westminster system.
I submit to you, Madam Assistant Speaker, that you will not see it referred to in the objects of the Freedom of Information Act. The Freedom of Information Act is about giving access, the widest possible access, to information that is in the public interest. And what Mr Corbell is proposing to do today is contrary to the public interest and is contrary to the objects of the act.
If we as a community go down a path after we have had lengthy discussions, that would be the time to create classes of documents that we cannot even consider as part of the FOI Act. The idea that because something becomes attached to a blue book—and I have prepared incoming government briefs and incoming minister briefs, I have received them as a staffer in a minister’s office and seen them, I have received them under the Freedom of Information Act and I know that in preparing incoming government briefs and incoming minister briefs there are attachments which are often everyday pieces of information—and the mere fact that attaching that to an incoming government brief may exempt it forever from the application of the Freedom of Information Act is a path that I am not prepared to go down on the assurance of Simon Corbell that that is a good thing to do.
This man, who says that he is suddenly in favour of reform, has just opened a Pandora’s box with this. Every time you put on an attachment, you stick something
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