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Parliamentary Questions


Question Without Notice No. 1060 asked in the Legislative Council on 24 September 2019 by Hon Michael Mischin

Parliament: 40 Session: 1

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.