Privacy Breaches

The Hon. N.J. CENTOFANTI (Leader of the Opposition) (14:24): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking a question of the Attorney-General about egregious privacy breaches by his government.

Leave granted.

The Hon. N.J. CENTOFANTI: In March of this year the Hon. Frank Pangallo asked the Attorney-General a series of questions about a report by the Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal, tabled by the Attorney in this place and by Deputy Premier Dr Susan Close in the other place in November 2023. As a direct result of the tabling of that report, it has been strongly argued to the opposition that it was obvious that neither the Attorney-General nor the Deputy Premier had read the document, nor were aware of the damaging contents, as neither would have been tabled if they had read those documents and thus discovered the significant privacy breaches.

In error, the names of more than 20 legal practitioners, whose matters either had not been heard or finalised, were published for all the world to see, when they should have been kept confidential rather than breaching their privacy. Unfortunately, this serious breach had implications. The then presiding member of the Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal, Maurine Pyke KC, admitted to the error and requested an inquiry, and significantly and very unusually that the report be, and I quote, 'uplifted', but the damage was done.

Whilst the Attorney-General and the Deputy Premier may claim this to be another administrative error, it is by any measure a very grave one, where neither the Attorney nor the government has yet to account for or give even a partially satisfactory justification for this serious privacy breach a full six months later. My questions to the Attorney are:

1. Why has the Attorney not yet explained how this serious error in breaching confidentiality and privacy occurred, despite the passage of a full six months?

2. Has the Attorney carried out an inquiry as requested, and when can we expect that report?

3. Has the Attorney or the Deputy Premier apologised to those legal practitioners who have been embarrassed by his and Dr Close's serious blunder?

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Attorney-General, Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector, Special Minister of State) (14:26): When I am provided documents to table, I tend not to remove pages from them. What I don't do either is make things up. This again stands in stark contrast. There is a report—and I can see what they are doing. Do you know what? I don't often praise—

The Hon. R.A. SIMMS: Point of order: we are 10 minutes in, we have people sleeping on the street and an algal bloom that is destroying our state; is this really the number one issue of discussion for the day? Relevance, Mr President?

The PRESIDENT: I am sorry, but that's not a point of order.

The Hon. K.J. MAHER: I do take the Hon. Robert Simms' point, and I will be very brief on this. I don't often congratulate or pay tribute to members opposite, but I will acknowledge the Leader of the Opposition for her attempts to run a protection racket for the Hon. Frank Pangallo, to try to cover up his mistakes, to try to divert attention from them. I think it is a very honourable thing to do. While for 24 hours the Leader of the Opposition, the member for Hartley, has been ducking and weaving, I think it's admirable that the leader here is trying to at least protect the Hon. Frank. Pangallo and protect the member for Hartley.

We saw this yesterday, and, again, I will not often pay credit, but we saw the Hon. Ben Hood yesterday—and again I will pay credit to the Hon. Ben Hood for fronting the media when the Hon. Frank Pangallo and the member for Hartley refused to. They were in hiding. The Hon. Ben Hood couldn't answer questions about having talked with the Hon. Frank Pangallo, but I congratulate him for giving it a go.

The PRESIDENT: Order! Your next question, the honourable Leader of the Opposition.