Page 1355 - Week 04 - Thursday, 4 April 2019
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MRS DUNNE: I repeat that quotation:
Standing orders seek to balance the competing demands of necessary confidentiality and desirable public access and openness in the conduct of committee business.
I would like to reflect on how effectively committees do that. I will be very careful not to impinge upon committee deliberations, but, having been a longstanding member and chair of committees in this place, I cannot think of an occasion when committee members and committee secretaries have not been alive to the issues of confidentiality. I can think of many occasions—there are live ones that have been discussed in this place even this week—when committees have agreed to redact certain information so as to not reveal the identity of the submitter or not to reveal the identity of people discussed in those submissions.
It is possible to do that and still publish information. In my time in the Legislative Assembly, apart from privileges committees, which tend to be conducted in camera, I can think of three occasions when I heard evidence in camera. One was related to the security of the AMC. There was quite a bit of evidence taken on that occasion. There were one or two other occasions when there was deeply personal information.
One of the things that we always have to bear in mind—this is touched on in the companion—is this: what do you do with that information that you have received in camera. Sometimes it can be published or published in part. It is quite clear in the companion that it is entirely within the remit of the committee to decide whether or not to publish that. Not even the witness who has given that evidence has the right to decline to have that published. It is entirely within the remit of the committee—not this place; only the committee.
I think it is very important that the authenticity and the autonomy of the committee system in this Assembly is maintained. The proposal that Minister Berry has at paragraph (3) is a direct infringement upon the authenticity and the autonomy of committees. I will refer members, for instance, to paragraph 16.118 of the companion. This has been discussed quite recently in committees that I have chaired and that I have been a member of. The companion states:
There are, however, circumstances where witnesses may request—
I emphasise “witnesses may request”; not the minister for education; not this Assembly. It states that witnesses may request:
the opportunity to provide a submission in confidence …
This is actually borne out again in House of Representatives Practice and in Odgers. It is the request of a witness for confidentiality and it is the request of a witness to object to a line of questioning. It is the job of the committee chair to ensure that witnesses are protected in the first instance. The companion goes on to state:
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