STANDING COMMITTEE ON
PROCEDURE AND PRIVILEGES — FIFTY-FIFTH REPORT —ATTORNEY GENERAL
1060. Hon MICHAEL MISCHIN to the Leader of the House
representing the Attorney General:
I refer to the Attorney General's
response and partial answers to my question without notice 1036 of 19 September
concerning his and his office's passing of correspondence from the
Legislative Council to the media.
(1) Identify for
each document that he passed to the media —
(a) the date of
the document and when it was received by him or his office;
(b) the author
and the addressee;
(c) the date on
which it was passed to a representative of the media;
(d) the person to
whom it was passed;
(e) why he chose
to pass that document on to the media; and
(f) what he said
to the media representative about the document and how it might be used when he
passed that document on.
(2) Identify for
each document that his chief of staff passed to the media —
(a) the date of
the document and when it was received by the chief of staff or her office;
(b) the author
and the addressee;
(c) the date on
which it was passed to a representative of the media;
(d) the person to
whom it was passed;
(e) why she chose
to pass that document on to the media; and
(f) what she said
to the media representative about the document and how it might be used when
she passed that document on.
(3) Why did he
not provide the above information to the extent it was requested in his response
to my question of 19 September? Is it because he is attempting to conceal the
extent to which he and his office are leaking, for political purposes,
information to the media?
The PRESIDENT: Leader of the House,
before you respond, I remind the Deputy Leader of the Opposition about standing
order 105(1)(a). Questions should be concise. I am not too sure that asking a significant
multi-parter like that is a concise question and I would not be too surprised
if he gets a very concise answer.
Hon SUE
ELLERY replied:
I thank the honourable member for
some notice of the question. I note that two parts have six sub-parts and the
third part of the question has two questions within it as well. Nevertheless,
the Attorney General has provided the following answer.
(1)–(3) As
the Attorney General has already informed the house, he has not provided any
correspondence to the media that has not been tabled in a report from the
Standing Committee on Procedure and Privileges. His chief of staff has shared a
copy of an invitation to her from the President of the house with some of her
former colleagues in the media. That letter was not marked confidential. The
Attorney General believes it is important to keep the public informed via the
media of matters of significant public interest. He notes that the committee
also considered the correspondence included in its reports was of sufficient
public importance to be tabled publicly.