Page 2799 - Week 08 - Thursday, 11 August 2016
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In respect of each of the subject areas, the purpose of having the exemption for cabinet information is to ensure that cabinet can consider every option and raise every issue the members of the cabinet think should be considered as part of the decision-making process. This means effectively protecting cabinet solidarity and ensuring that individual members of the cabinet can bring any issue to the cabinet’s attention without fear of a public negative consequence. Once a decision has been made and then is acted on by cabinet there may well not be any need to keep confidential information relied upon to reach the particular decision. This is evidenced by the amount of information that is already released to the public following cabinet decisions.
The bill, in schedule 1, part 1.4, deems “information created for the purpose of consideration by cabinet, or a committee of cabinet, disclosure of which would, or could reasonably be expected to, prejudice the collective responsibility of cabinet” to be contrary to the public interest test. This exemption protects the underlying rationale for the confidentiality of cabinet considerations without extending to information that has no ability to affect how well cabinet does its job in the future but only to demonstrate to the public whether or not the decisions that have been made are well-founded and can withstand proper public scrutiny.
The Greens do not agree that there should be any exemption for cabinet information and instead believe that the public interest test should be applied. However, we accept that the majority do not share this view, and that is why I have moved the amendment to maintain the status quo. The government amendment that had been circulated actually expands the scope of the exemption, which is the opposite intention of the bill. So I will put an amendment forward instead which simply adopts section 35 of the current FOI Act. As I say, it maintains the status quo.
MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (4.50): The Canberra Liberals will support this amendment. The Canberra Liberals were keen to put some more protections for cabinet information into this legislation. Originally we agreed that we should support the attorney’s amendment No 53, but a close reading of it revealed that it is a little clunky and that the insertion of the term “brought into existence in the course of the budgetary process” somewhat undermines the position we took in relation to the open access scheme in budget information.
On that basis, as well as the slightly clunky wording, we have agreed that we should reinstate or retain the exemption definitions in the current Freedom of Information Act. Again, this is an area where I am open to a more liberal approach over time, with experience, but at this stage my colleagues and I agree that we should take this cautious approach, and we are happy to support the insertion of protections for cabinet information. I think that the approach in the present legislation is preferable to the government’s proposal.
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Deputy Chief Minister, Attorney-General, Minister for Health, Minister for Police and Emergency Services and Minister for the Environment and Climate Change) (4.52): The government is willing to accept the position that the current definition of cabinet information in the current FOI Act be applied in the new legislation.
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