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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2017-05-31 Daily Xml
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Oakden Mental Health Facility

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (14:10): My question is to the Attorney-General. Given the Attorney-General's statement to the house yesterday that if the Independent Commissioner Against Corruption seeks access to documents, and I quote, 'then the government will cooperate', will this extend to the release of cabinet documents, or does the government intend to ignore any summons from the commissioner for cabinet documents?

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) (14:11): Notwithstanding the argumentative aspect of the question, and in particular the concept of ignoring, I will leave that aside because we are trying to be as helpful as we possibly can—

Mr Marshall interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The leader is on a full set of warnings.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: It might be helpful if I were to explain to some extent what it is that we are talking about when we talk about cabinet documents and what it is that is being sought, as we understand it, in due course by Mr Lander.

Cabinet documents are documents which are prepared specifically for the purpose of consideration by cabinet. Those documents come either in the form of a cabinet submission, a cabinet note, or whatever it might be, as you would be well familiar with, Mr Speaker, and those documents are prepared by government agencies for government ministers, who sign those documents in—because only a minister can sign a document into cabinet—and those documents are used, in effect, as the agenda item for a conversation at the cabinet table.

Those documents do not relate to matters of administrative detail; they relate to matters requiring a decision or a notation or acknowledgement by cabinet. For example, a cabinet submission is from time to time brought in by the attorney-general of the day requesting that members of the cabinet agree to the attorney taking forward a bill to parliament. In doing that, the attorney is not taking to cabinet every piece of conversation that has occurred in the public domain about the subject of that bill.

The attorney is not bringing every piece of legal advice that has been sought or obtained in relation to that bill. The attorney is generally speaking, saying, 'Look, there is a policy proposition I wish to advance. I think the way to do that is with this bill. Here is my draft bill. Can I please have permission from my colleagues to take this in our case to our caucus to seek approval to introduce it into parliament?' That is the nature of cabinet documents.

As I understand it from what I have read, Mr Lander in his inquiry will be seeking to ascertain essentially this: what was known by whom, when, and to whom did they communicate it and how and what happened. That's a very short summary, but that's basically what he's on about, as I understand it. If you just think for a moment about what he's on about and you think for a moment about what I have tried to explain is the nature of cabinet material, you would see that there is virtually zero prospect of there being an overlap between one and the other.

Mr Pederick interjecting:

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

The Hon. J.R. RAU: The second point is—this is nothing unique to South Australia or any Australian state; it is something that is a longstanding matter in all Westminster systems—the conversations that occur in the cabinet room are intended to be able to occur in circumstances of complete confidence, where people can feel free, for example, to criticise a proposition that I might put up before the parliament without any fear that that will cause any embarrassment or difficulty. That is the nature of cabinet discussion. It is not a place where people sit down and ask, 'Where can we conceal this document? How can we avoid this consideration?' This is just not the purpose of cabinet. The whole conversation about cabinet documents is a red herring.

The SPEAKER: The minister's time has expired.

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