MARK DREYFUS
SHADOW ATTORNEY-GENERAL
SHADOW MINISTER FOR CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM
MEMBER FOR ISAACS
MORRISON HUMILIATED ON NATIONAL CABINET SECRECY
Scott Morrison’s delusional and arrogant attempt to declare National Cabinet exempt from public scrutiny has been comprehensively repudiated by a judge of the Federal Court.
Scott Morrison thought that labelling something part of “the Cabinet” made it part of the Cabinet. He has always believed that marketing can trump reality – but today he has been given a reality check.
Justice Richard White held that:
The mere use of the name “National Cabinet” does not, of itself, have the effect of making a group of persons using the name a “committee of the Cabinet”. Nor does the mere labelling of a committee as a “Cabinet committee” have that effect.
Justice Richard White found National Cabinet documents were not eligible for a blanket exemption from Freedom of Information requests because “none of the subject documents is an official record of a committee of the Cabinet”.
In a humiliating rebuff for Mr Morrison, Justice White rejected outright the Commonwealth’s argument that “the one and only essential feature of a federal Cabinet committee is that it has been established as such a Cabinet committee by the Australian Prime Minister.”
This seemed tantamount to a submission that any committee may be a “committee of the Cabinet” for the purposes of the FOI Act merely because the Prime Minister of the day has purported to establish it as such. This premise is unsound.
From the outset Labor has criticised Mr Morrison’s false labelling of COAG as a meeting of “cabinet”.
Labor congratulates Senator Rex Patrick for bringing this case and winning this important fight for the Australian public’s right to know.
The ruling rejects Mr Morrison’s tricky marketing ploy to rebadge COAG as “National Cabinet”, and then declare it to be exempt from Freedom of Information requests.
This is a very welcome rejection of the Morrison Government’s absurd and desperate attempt to hide everything it does from public scrutiny.
It makes clear that as with his frequent announcements on Covid vaccines, just because Mr Morrison says something is true, that does not make it true.
This is a Government addicted to secrecy.
At a time when record amounts of taxpayers’ funds are being spent responding to the pandemic, the Australian people have every right to be kept informed about what is being done in their name.
It sends police to raid journalists who dare to tell the Australian public what their government is up to, it won’t answer questions in the Parliament, it shuts down questioning in senate estimates and does everything it can to stop the public finding out about what it’s up to.
THURSDAY, 5 AUGUST 2021
