Month: April 2021

Under ten minutes and well worth watching for the big picture.

On 20 March I updated you on my fight with the Prime Minister to have the secrecy blanket over National Cabinet discussions – which seems to cover meetings of doctors, meetings of gas officials – declared as unlawful.

Early last month the Administrative Appeals Tribunal elevated the matter to be heard by a Federal Court Justice. At that time the PM also engaged a taxpayer funded Queens Counsel (QC) to represent him. About two weeks ago the date was set for a hearing – 19 May.

This week the PM became so worried I’m going to win that his QC introduced a fallback reason for denying me access to documents that doesn’t rely on Cabinet. Now the PM is saying that the ‘National Cabinet’ documents I’m seeking are purportedly secret because disclosing them would damage Federal-State relations.
Whilst Federal and State Governments are supposed to open and transparent with citizens, according to the PM this apparently changes when they get together to chat. Really?

I’m confident the PM will lose both claims – but the truth is I am really focussed on the National Cabinet secrecy claim because if I win that I will have put a stop to the PM’s abuse of power and unilateral fraud upon transparency.