Cabinet Documents

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (14:12): Supplementary: now that the Attorney-General has read the Auditor-General's Report outlining the new regime and his concerns about needing to have access to—

The Hon. J.M. Rankine interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Wright is called to order.

Ms CHAPMAN: —the documents prepared for cabinet—

The Hon. J.M. RANKINE: Point of order, sir: the deputy leader doesn't have leave to make an explanation in her question.

The SPEAKER: I uphold the point of order. Deputy leader.

Ms CHAPMAN: I will rephrase the question. Now that we have just heard from the Attorney-General outlining what the Auditor-General has access to, and has read his report on this question, and has now had notice of the ICAC commissioner's concern—

The SPEAKER: The Deputy Premier, by the time this question will have finished, will have had time to go to his office and research it.

Ms CHAPMAN: My simple question then is—

The SPEAKER: Yes, well ask a question.

Ms CHAPMAN: —will he now reconsider the position given that both the Auditor-General and the ICAC Commissioner have raised concerns about the secrecy of this new proposal?

The SPEAKER: A good question is a fast question. Deputy Premier.

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) (14:13): I have tried to explain as fairly and as accurately as I can the nature of the conversation I had with the Auditor-General. If you read the remarks in the Auditor-General's Report—not my words, the Auditor-General's remarks—he is not intemperate about what's gone on, he's not complaining, he's not throwing the toys out of the cot. He is simply saying, 'There is a change in the way things are going to proceed. If I find that causes many a difficulty, I will speak to the government.' But he is not saying that it is causing him any difficulty.

As for Commissioner Lander's point of view, I wasn't present at the meeting of the committee to which the commissioner spoke the other day, but I have spoken to the commissioner myself about these particular matters. I think it is fair to say that so far as the commissioner is concerned, the view he has expressed to me was that he just thinks it's useful for there to be a set of rules that everybody understands and everybody plays with.

I think he acknowledges, as the Auditor does, that cabinet documents not just in South Australia but all around the country and nationally are regarded as a special class of document that is privileged from production to people outside of cabinet. As the Premier said, even people in cabinet who weren't part of a government earlier on don't get access to things that an earlier government or a different government was doing.

There is nothing alarming about this. If at any point in time either Commissioner Lander or the Auditor-General run into a problem, I fully expect—and I say on the public record that I fully expect—they would speak to me, or to the Premier, or to somebody who might be able to assist them with a view to seeing what we could do to enable them to do their job.