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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-05-16 Daily Xml
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FREEDOM OF INFORMATION

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (15:36): I rise to speak about two issues. On 3 May of this year I asked the following question of the Hon. Mr Wortley:

Will the minister assure this house that no member of staff in his ministerial office has breached the confidentiality provisions of the Freedom of Information Act by revealing the name of a person making an application for information under the Freedom of Information Act to a number of persons who are not entitled to be provided with that information under the Freedom of Information Act?

When one looks at the staffing in the minister's office, it should be a relatively simple undertaking or guarantee for the minister to give. He has a freedom of information officer, Amanda Lonsdale, who is a senior admin officer. The arrangements are that, when FOIs come in, that person can discuss with one or two other ministerial advisers in the minister's office the nature of freedom of information applications. We are aware that that occurs with freedom of information applications in most departments, agencies and offices.

Therefore, it should be a relatively simple task for the minister to go to the freedom of information officer, and the one or two other ministerial officers in his office who have been advised of the nature of FOI applications from members of parliament, to seek an undertaking or guarantee from them that they have not been breaching the confidentiality provisions of the Freedom of Information Act. In extraordinary fashion, I got a letter on 8 May from the minister which, amongst other things, says:

To assist me in answering your question, I would appreciate you providing me with any information regarding a breach of confidentiality by any member of my staff so that I may direct my inquiries appropriately. Once I have received this information, I will endeavour to answer your question.

That is a clear indication that the minister has had a quick chat to the one or two officers in his office and said, 'Hey; can I give this guarantee to Lucas that he's seeking?', and there has been a quick comment of, 'Ahem; I think you'd better be very careful, minister; there are these circumstances, perhaps, where you might not be able to give that guarantee back to the house. What about if we try flushing out Lucas to find out how much he knows?'

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Mr Lucas.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: 'We'll send this letter to Lucas and see whether he will be silly enough to give us all the details of the information that has been passed to him, and then we can seek to mount a defence to that particular claim. That way, if he's not aware of some of the other examples where we have been breaching the provisions and telling everyone, we don't have to reveal that at all.'

The minister would have said, 'Very good idea. No wonder we pay you $100,000-plus for being a ministerial adviser. Write me a letter and I'll sign it for you.' Then, within hours, a letter came chugging off to my office seeking information.

Well, I did not come down in the last political shower. Let me assure the minister that the question is on the record. We are now aware of what has gone on within his office; let him come back to the house and answer the question. Will he give that undertaking or won't he?

The second issue was in relation to the contract of Freddie Hansen the ex Thinker in Residence, who I have raised before, who is being paid by taxpayers the princely sum of $392,000. Now that we have actually tracked down this contract, we find that it was signed by minister Conlon and Freddie Hansen, but where it actually says 'the above is signed by' and there is a date there, the date is not filled in as to when it was executed. 'Executed as an agreement on the' such-and-such day of 2012; it is signed by Conlon, signed by a witness, signed by Freddie Hansen, but it does not actually indicate the date.

I wonder why. It is because Freddie Hansen, as I allege, started work and had not concluded an agreement. This agreement had not actually been signed until after Freddie Hansen started work. The only date is in one of the schedules where the remuneration package is referred to of $392,000, and Freddie Hansen notes that it was dated 2 May, two or three days after he commenced work and just after I asked the question in the house, but minister Conlon does not indicate when he signed that particular schedule.

The question remains: why was this ex-thinker allowed to start work without a contract having been executed and it was only executed clearly after questions were raised in this place by the Liberal Party on that Tuesday?

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