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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 7 Hansard (26 June) . . Page.. 2622 ..
MR CORNWELL
(continuing):mistakes. This afternoon, while we would appear to have moved on from the abuses of commercial-in-confidence, we saw an example of this government refusing to allow me to adjourn a motion on a report relating to Totalcare, which had more blackouts in it than London during the Blitz.
The analogy is appropriate because we are looking at a fundamental threat to the Westminster tradition. I know that there are many republicans in this Assembly-much to their chagrin, Canberra is again out of step with the rest of the nation-but I believe that even they would not challenge the Westminster tradition when it comes to parliamentary historical precedents.
Therefore, I wonder why yet another minister of this government is moving an amendment that appears not to be transparent or open-although they talk about it as being both. The amendment was moved by Mr Corbell, who "signed a confidentiality agreement"that is provided by not the Speaker, not the Assembly, but the Minister for Planning.
Mr Hargreaves interjected on my colleague Mr Stefaniak, asking what the penalty would be if a member breached the confidentiality. Mr Hargreaves suggested that he or she would be in contempt of the Assembly. I am not sure; I think they would just be in contempt of the Minister for Planning.
Mr Hargreaves
: You're already in contempt of the Minister for Planning, let me tell you!MR CORNWELL
: Well, that is what the amendment states. I am confused. Let me conclude on this point. Mr Corbell stated that one of the reasons why we wanted this confidentiality clause signed was to do with matters perhaps appearing before the courts. I refer to House of Representatives Practice, page 595:In 1994, following a dispute between the Government and a Senate select committee over the production of documents concerning Foreign Investment Review Board decisions, a private Senator introduced a bill giving the Federal Court the power to determine whether documents in dispute in such circumstances could be withheld from a House or committee on public interest grounds.211 The bill was referred to the Senate Privileges Committee, which recommended that the bill not be proceeded with and that claims of public interest immunity should continue to be dealt with by the House concerned.212 The House also referred the matter of the appropriateness of such legislation to its Privileges Committee.213 The committee concluded that the evidence available did not establish that it would be desirable for legislation to be enacted to transfer to the Court the responsibility to adjudicate in these matters.214
This is the crucial part and point:
In any consideration of this question it is important to bear in mind that, because different aspects of the public interest are involved-that is, the proper functioning of the parliament as against the due administration of justice-the question of disclosure of documents to the Parliament is not the same question as disclosure of documents to the courts.215
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