FAMILIES AND COMMUNITIES DEPARTMENT

The Hon. I.F. EVANS (Davenport) (15:53): Today I wish to speak about the Department for Family and Communities losing or destroying documents. The reason I do this is that, just after the establishment of the department's Special Investigations Unit, the then CEO, Kate Lennon, received a memo in July 2004 stating:

It has been identified within the [Department for Families and Communities] that there is an urgent and pressing necessity to undertake an independent review of the Special Investigations Unit in light of allegations made against this Unit by the industry sector.

As a result of that memo, the CEO did initiate a review, and it was conducted by the former deputy commissioner of police, Neil McKenzie. I FOId all documents relating to the industry sector. In fact, I FOI'd all documents relating to allegations against the Special Investigations Unit by the industry sector as referred to in the memo to CEO Kate Lennon on 27 July 2004. On 13 November this year, I received a response from the department, stating:

…a thorough search has been conducted in relation to your request. As no records within the parameters of your request could be discovered, access must be refused.

Let us understand what it is saying. The department is saying that the complaints from the industry sector were so serious in July 2004 that it had to call in a former deputy commissioner of police at short notice—without going to tender—to conduct a review of the Special Investigations Unit, which at that stage had been set up only for a few months such was the level of the complaint from the industry sector about the way in which the Special Investigations Unit was conducting itself.

The department would then have us believe, through the freedom of information response, that there are no documents relating to those complaints. That is a bloody nonsense, because we all know that no chief executive would issue a review of that standing involving a former deputy commissioner of police without the complaints being in writing. No-one at that level would institute a review without the complaints being in writing.

These complaints go directly to the issue of the conduct of the Special Investigations Unit and the way in which it conducted its investigations. This is a matter that I have raised in relation to the Mr Easling matter about which the parliament is well aware. I put this to the parliament: does the parliament really believe that there should be no written records—not a letter, not an email, not a file note, not a diary note, not a departmental file number, not a record, nothing, zip—it does not exist? Does anyone actually believe that? Well, the member for Davenport does not and this side of the house does not. We just do not believe it.

I say to the minister (whose only action really in relation to this matter is not to answer anything): go and ask your department. Has it simply lost the documents? Did the documents never exist (which, of course, is totally not believable, because Kate Lennon acted on them), or have they been destroyed? What has happened to the documents? Surely there is a duty on the department to maintain the documents, and surely there is a duty on this minister to go in there and investigate what happened to the documents.

How much longer is the parliament going to tolerate the stonewalling by this government on issues related to this matter? The documents did exist; the government acted on them. When anyone wants copies of the documents, suddenly they do not exist. In my view, it is an abuse of process, it should be investigated by the minister and the parliament deserves an answer.

Time expired.