Cabinet Documents

Mr WILLIAMS (MacKillop) (14:09): Given the Attorney's answer and his claim that this practice is universal, is he or anybody in his government aware that the New Zealand freedom of information law presumes that submissions made to cabinet aren't automatically kept from exposure to the public and the practice is that agencies regularly put on their websites submissions made to cabinet shortly after the end of the cabinet meeting—the scheduled cabinet meeting—and it's only the deliberations of cabinet or information which would harm the nation that is, indeed, kept in secret from the public?

The Hon. J.R. RAU (Enfield—Deputy Premier, Attorney-General, Minister for Justice Reform, Minister for Planning, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for Child Protection Reform, Minister for the Public Sector, Minister for Consumer and Business Services, Minister for the City of Adelaide) (14:10): That's a fairly long question. I am aware that our colleagues across the ditch are routinely doing innovative things in a whole range of areas. I am not particularly familiar with exactly what they do in relation to these sorts of matters.

Further to my earlier answer—I do understand, though, I obviously wasn't present and those who were present will no doubt correct me if this is incorrect—when the Auditor recently attended at the Economic and Finance Committee, he did indicate that he had access to decision-making sets via departments, which is a different matter to a cabinet document. He also apparently made it clear that he had never had access to the detail of deliberations in cabinet.

I think what we are doing is regularising affairs and, as the Auditor-General said in his report, if it turns out that he feels in due course that he is in some way unable to do his duty as he would wish to do it, he would automatically therefore raise that with the government. All of us would expect him to take that up with us if he found himself in difficulty, and we would obviously do whatever we could to be of assistance to him.