APY Executive Board

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS (14:45): As am I, Mr President.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! The Hon. Ms Franks is on her feet.

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS: Thank you, Mr President. I seek leave to make a brief explanation before addressing a question to the Treasurer, representing the Premier, on the topic of APY legal costs.

Leave granted.

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS: On 13 September, the Supreme Court upheld a decision by the Ombudsman that the APY Executive Board is not exempt from freedom of information applications. In what The Advertiser dubbed 'a damning judgment'—and I would have to agree—Justice Martin Hinton quashed an application by APY initiated by the general manager, Richard King, that it was an exempt agency.

The action, of course, was launched to try to prevent the release of financial information and expenditure relating to APY contained in response to seven FOI applications lodged by the former member for Morphett, Dr Duncan McFetridge, back in October 2016. The APY refused to comply with the freedom of information requests, contending that they were an exempt agency. Dr McFetridge appealed that to the Ombudsman. The Ombudsman, Mr Lines, reviewed the refusal and ruled that the APY was not an exempt agency under its act.

In response, however, in October 2017, the APY sought a Supreme Court review, arguing that it was an exempt agency. Justice Hinton has since ruled that the actions of the Ombudsman were not legally unreasonable and found that the APY had acted unreasonably in its external review.

The APY is currently no stranger to such legal action. That 13 September ruling followed a Supreme Court ruling in July by Justice Trish Kelly, in which she dismissed an application by Mr King, the general manager, to quash another probe by the Ombudsman, Mr Lines. She also upheld the adverse findings of a previous inquiry. The costs in that case were awarded against Mr King, which I believe the APY is liable for, but Mr King has since appealed. I have to agree with Justice Hinton's statement in the ruling that 'there is a large element of futility about this'. My questions to the Premier with regard to this are:

1. After three years of refusals, legal action and appeals for the provision of what was just a few simple documents, what is the quantum of the legal costs that have been racked up so far by the APY, under the leadership of general manager Richard King?

2. What amount of state moneys have been expended on this legal folly?

3. If little or no state moneys have been expended, what state moneys have had to be diverted to essential services as a result of these legal costs?

4. How much of these legal costs is Richard King personally liable for?

5. What would the cost of simply providing those seven documents in the first place have entailed for the APY, to have provided those documents back in October 2016?

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (Treasurer) (14:48): I am happy to take the honourable member's questions on notice and refer them to the Premier and/or the Attorney-General to provide a series of answers.