Motions

Financial Sustainability Review Reports

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS (16:58): I move:

That there be laid upon the table of this council, within 21 days of the passing of the resolution by the Leader of the Government, the two reports prepared by Mr Mark Priadko from 2011-12 titled 'Financial Sustainability Review Reports' in relation to the South Australian Museum and the Art Gallery of South Australia, respectively.

This is a very simple motion and it comes to us through the Statutory Authorities Review Committee, which is currently undertaking an inquiry, as members will be well aware, into not only the South Australian Museum but also the Art Gallery of South Australia.

I bring this motion to this council today which is in effect a motion for an order for the production of documents. I do so with cognisance that these documents are indeed cabinet papers. Of course, normally one would not be able to access cabinet papers and documents, but we have a 10-year rule in this state now, and we are told not just as the Parliament of South Australia but the people of South Australia that after 10 years cabinet documents can be accessed and made public, usually and typically by an FOI, a freedom of information request system.

Once they are made public they are also usually and typically able to be accessed on the website of the Department of the Premier and Cabinet by anyone who chooses to read those documents. They do make both mind-numbingly boring and also quite interesting reading, having been someone who has trawled through those documents.

The Statutory Authorities Review Committee wrote in July this year to the Department of the Premier and Cabinet, asking for these particular documents to be given to the Statutory Authorities Review Committee for our inquiry into the Museum and the Art Gallery, assuming that, given we were beyond the 10-year rule, they would be able to be accessed by a parliamentary committee for a relevant inquiry.

At first we received a response from the DPC saying that we could not have them because they were cabinet documents. We pointed out to DPC that there was a 10-year rule. It is not quite the two-second rule; it is the 10-year rule. Upon acknowledging after many months that there was a 10-year rule and that indeed we were quite within our rights to ask for these cabinet documents, the committee this week received in correspondence a freedom of information request form to fill out to access said documents.

I note, of course, that members of parliament can have waived the I think it is $42 or thereabouts fee, but in the committee we had a little discussion and noted that we were not quite sure who was the entity that would fill out the freedom of information request form that so generously had been offered to us by DPC for documents that they simply should have sent our committee. So I moved—and the committee supported the motion—that we bring it here to the Legislative Council not only to establish an understanding with the Department of the Premier and Cabinet that there are rules that one must follow with regard to access to documents and requiring them to be made public after 10 years in terms of cabinet documents but indeed the ludicrous nature of their offer to us to fill in a freedom of information request.

That was something I could have done in July this year had I chosen to do so, but I had figured that the Department of the Premier and Cabinet would take this seriously enough to provide a parliamentary committee with the information we need to undertake our important work on these two important cultural institutions with the support of the government and the department of the day.

It is extraordinary that I have to bring this motion to this place, but I do so because this place needs to hold governments, whoever they are, whichever colour they are, to account, and the parliament should be supported in doing our important work and not presented, firstly, with a refusal to provide us with the information which should be publicly available in the first place and, secondly, with some bureaucratic paperwork to fill in when quite clearly there is no person actually able to fill in that paperwork on behalf of the committee in a reasonable way.

Quite simply, I will be taking this to a vote in the next week of sitting. I will obviously alert members to that via email. But 21 days later or hopefully earlier I would hope that not only does the council receive these documents but also that the Statutory Authorities Review Committee receives these documents. With that, I commend this motion to all council members who are democracy loving.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. I.K. Hunter.