Page 1158 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 6 April 2016

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(d) the Chief Minister is currently considering the Chief Police Officer’s recommendations relating to the security and handling of sensitive information; and

(e) it would be totally inappropriate for the Chief Minister to disclose sensitive police information or personal information.”.

I thank the Leader of the Opposition for raising this matter today. I can advise the Assembly that the Chief Police Officer has, indeed, briefed me on the outcomes of ACT Policing’s evaluation. No criminal charges will be laid, but the police have expressed concerns about the handling of sensitive information. There is nothing in the police concerns that reflect on any current ministerial staff.

Clearly all persons in the service of the public have an obligation to maintain confidentiality in relation to sensitive information. The Chief Police Officer has made recommendations in relation to additional training and support of staff in relation to information handling, and I will take further advice around their implementation.

The information in question was sensitive operational information relating to ongoing police investigations, and it was passed on. Of course, I cannot publicly release sensitive police information used in an investigation here in the Assembly or in any other manner, but I am happy to table a transcript from the Chief Police Officer’s interview he gave to the media at the time of the announcement of the outcome of the evaluation, and I table that now:

Police investigation into leaked information—Press Conference with Chief Police Officer—22 March 2016—Transcript.

The Chief Police Officer highlighted in his presentation that some of the information that was evaluated was passed in the first instance to the CFMEU. Other sensitive police operational material was passed to other people who had no need to know that information. He was questioned on whether this was on subjects related to the CFMEU or unions or anything else and he stated clearly:

There are matters separate to the CFMEU that were related to people who didn’t need to know that information.

He was questioned again:

And they weren’t union people that the information was being passed to?

And he stated:

They were just other people but not associated with the union.

According to the statement released by the Chief Police Officer, having completed the evaluation, whilst information was passed on, no criminality was found. I repeat: no

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