THE HON MARK DREYFUS QC MP
SHADOW ATTORNEY-GENERAL
SHADOW MINISTER FOR NATIONAL SECURITY
MEMBER FOR ISAACS
BRANDIS’S DIARY – A VICTORY FOR TRANSPARENCY
Three years since the original Freedom of Information (FOI) request was made, and thousands of taxpayer dollars later – George Brandis has finally handed over his diary.
The FOI shows no evidence the Attorney-General met with legal assistance organisations before savagely slashing their funding in 2013 and 2014.
While the capitulation represents a victory for common sense, transparency and the principles of FOI, it is also ridiculous that it took such lengths to force the Attorney-General to comply with an Act that sits within his own portfolio.
In order for the Attorney-General to fulfil a simple request, it has taken an appeal to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, a hearing in the Full Court of the Federal Court, and the threat of contempt.
It is absurd, and it shows once more Senator Brandis’s unsuitability for the role of Attorney-General and his contempt for the rule of law.
What is most remarkable about the diary segments released by Senator Brandis is the absence of anything controversial or even noteworthy. Which begs the question – why fight?
The one notable thing is that there is no evidence that Senator Brandis met with legal assistance services including Environmental Defenders Offices and Community Legal Centres before slashing their funding – the reason for making the original request. But given the lack of apparent meetings with groups outside of the
bureaucracy and judiciary, and trips to the opera, it is sadly unsurprising.
George Brandis may have done the right thing this time, but it is three years too late.
And he continues to obfuscate and hide the truth in other matters – particularly the Bell Group affair. He is also about to inflict a 30 per cent cut on Community Legal Centres on 1 July, which will send access to justice in this country backwards.
Labor will continue to hold this hopeless Attorney-General to account – he will not be allowed to escape to London without Australians knowing the full extent of the damage he has done to law and justice in this country.
MONDAY, 20 MARCH 2017
