STANDING COMMITTEE ON
PROCEDURE AND PRIVILEGES — FIFTY-SIXTH REPORT —LEGAL ADVICE
1100. Hon MICHAEL MISCHIN to the Leader of the House
representing the Attorney General:
(1) Has any
correspondence passing between the President or Clerk of the house and the
State Solicitor regarding the legal
proceedings concerning Director General Foster been supplied to any reporter of
The West Australian by the Attorney General, his chief of
staff or any member of his office?
(2) If yes to
(1), will the Attorney General identify the correspondence and by whom it was
supplied, to whom it was supplied, when it was supplied and by what means, and
why it was supplied?
Hon SUE
ELLERY replied:
I thank the
honourable member for some notice of the question.
(1)–(2) The Attorney General showed a reporter from The
West Australian a letter from the Clerk of the house dated 28 August 2019,
and not marked confidential, regarding the successful legal proceedings taken
by Mr Foster against the President of the house. It was important to
inform the public how the Legislative Council had been badly advised to vote
for a motion that was beyond its legal powers. The letter showed that the Clerk
was relying on an obscure and irrelevant order in the House of Commons from
1641, prior to the execution of the monarch Charles I. The Attorney General
relayed to the reporter that he was astounded by the poor quality of advice the
Council was receiving, which he saw as a matter of public importance. Neither
his chief of staff nor any other staff
member was present. The letter was tabled at page 36 of the fifty-sixth report
of the Standing Committee on Procedure and Privileges.