Canberra Liberals push to release ACT cabinet documents after a month

Monty Ki you do know why opposition Government exists right? If it’s all one sided that’s a very bad thing.

John McClane but what are they opposing that’s of serious significance?

Monty Ki they are opposing the lack of transparency in which the Cabinet process is being (allegedly) abused by Government to make decisions outside the public eye of scrutiny.

John McClane What a crock, John. Cabinet makes decisions – those decisions are then openly revealed, either by the framing of new legislation, which is debated openly in the LA or manifests as a policy directive to a Minister’s directorate which is then openly acted upon. How can the release of deliberations that showed Minister A voted against the majority decision to do something, benefit open government?

Mark Oz I don’t believe votes are held in cabinet are they? To give you a very real example, the lockdown directions and vaccine directions were provided to ACT Health as a result of outcomes from the Cabinet. People have submitted FOI requests for ACT Health to get back the information (medical or otherwise) used in determining the requirement that lead to lockdowns and vaccine mandates, however the public is constantly told “sorry it is directives that came from Cabinet and are therefore non-disclosure under FOI.” I hope you can see the importance of the public need to scrutinise these decisions. These challenges have been occurring in other states such as SA and it has been found that these decisions were not made based upon medical evidence, and the very same day this was discovered the vaccine mandate imposed on the SA police force was abolished. So yes, there is much to gain by opening up these secretive processes.

John McClane Given that SA has the same restriction on the release of Cabinet documents as the ACT (i.e. 10 years) it was obviously not the release of the (Cabinet) deliberations that led to the discovery of the information regarding the vaccine mandates. If Ms Lee’s proposal were to come to fruition, then it would just mean that Cabinet meetings would be scripted and vanilla with no ‘frank and robust’ discussion. Colleagues need to have a forum where they can air their differences without it being used as a political tool against them.

Mark Oz are you sure it was not release of cabinet minutes? A court order is not restricted to the FOI Act, and so if a court orders the release of the documents, short of other legislation that could override the court I should think it would be released for the proceedings. Yes I agree they were obviously not released under FOI, however the court did force them to produce something and as a result it was determined that the Government had no medical basis to do what they did. And so I don’t think it’s a long bow to draw to say that we’re going to discover the same thing occurred in the ACT. Short of someone launching proceedings against the ACT Government, seems like this process ti release cabinet documents is the best course of action. I stand by my statement that if they can’t have frank and robust discussions in the public eye then they should reconsider the necessity of those discussions. We have seen evidence of state Govt doing the wrong thing previously so it makes sense that we investigate into what our state has done/is doing.

John McClane Actually, John, it was the SA Ombudsman who ordered the release COVID-19 documents considered by the state’s Transition Committee. “The Committee, which features several top-level bureaucrats and Chief Public Health Officer Nicola Spurrier, was set up to advise Police Commissioner Grant Stevens on how to manage the imposition and lifting of coronavirus restrictions.” You can read about the release, etc here:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-18/secret-sa-covid-documents-ordered-for-release/100226726

Mark Oz I believe you. And so do you feel that a committee setup to discuss COVID restrictions needs the privilege of secret? Do you feel that they would not be able to take appropriate action if their deliberations were public knowledge? If so, can you provide an example of such?

John McClane That’s a different matter entirely, John. The question being discussed is the release of cabinet papers – no SA cabinet papers were required to be released.

Mark Oz well it depends if the privilege of cabinet was extended to the COVID taskforce? I was of the understanding that it was? I remember ScoMo on TV saying that it was important that the taskforce (albeit the National one) remained under cabinet privilege when others sought it to be an open process. So I very much do think it’s been an abuse of cabinet privilege unless SA taskforce was operating under some other powers of secrecy?

John McClane I think ScoMo was actually referring to the National Cabinet, which comprised himself, the six premiers and two chief ministers, and operated under the Commonwealth Cabinet Handbook – and as such was afforded the same privileges as any other Cabinet.

Mark Oz welp I dunno if you’re a politician or not, but what I do know is a politician who would be more across the deliberations of cabinet and all these things than I am, has herself said: “Ms Lee said she saw no reason the ACT Government could not significantly reduce this timeframe given its scope of responsibilities.”

“Government must be open and transparent wherever possible,” Ms Lee said.

And I reckon she’d know. Given my prior experiences that I mentioned earlier I agree with her.

Haven’t seen too many members of the public argue that the Government should be more secret, and given you couldn’t supply an example when asked, that leads me to believe you are someone who currently enjoys cabinet privilege and have something to lose when that gets shortened. I hope this bill gets legs and is passed.

Mark Oz I think with all the ICAC anti-corruption noise they’re (Labor/Green) making, given that New Zealand has done similar already, it would be pretty hypocritical of them not to pass it. We’ll see.

John McClane John you certainly have a capacity to confuse facts.
Citing a precedent for the “court initiated” early release of Cabinet papers in SA when it was actually the SA Ombudsman and a public service task force. Stating ScoMo accorded Cabinet protection to a task force when it was actually a Cabintet of federal, state and territory leaders.
You now cite NZ as an example of why it should be done here. You did read the article didn’t you, John? They (NZ govt) have a “…unless there is a good reason not to publish all or part of the material …” clause – which I’m sure will be invoked on far more occasions than it will not.
Then you are suggesting that the wide spread calls for a national integrity commission supports this suggestion from the opposition on the grounds of corruption. Just because you don’t like a decision that doesn’t make it corrupt.
You obviously have an issue with vaccine mandates. That’s fine, John, a majority of your fellow Australians do not share that opinion – although you are probably going to tell me over “a million Australians descended on Canberra” to protest?
I think this is another example of divergent opinions.

Mark Oz yes I’ve not made it any secret that I’m against vaccine mandates, and yes I do think when they say 2 jabs back to normal and 4 jabs later people are still dying, some questions should be asked 🙃

John McClane OK, so you don’t like a specific decision relating to a specific issue (i.e. vaccine mandates), so you want a complete overhaul of the whole Cabinet-in-Confidence principle?

Mark Oz a) It’s the Canberra Liberals putting forward the bill, not me, but yes I support what they want to do.

b) I at no point said that decisions from Government that I think are dubious are limited to ones involving vaccine mandates. That is just one most recent issue that I cited and I believe needs to be put under a lens.

John McClane I think the Canberra Liberals have achieved exactly the outcome they sought. This is political grandstanding at its best – proposing populist legislation that they know won’t succeed, but gives them the opportunity to cry foul when it is defeated. The issue is, John, they are preaching to the converted, such as yourself – whereas those who don’t subscribe to conspiracy theories, understand exactly why such safeguards are in place across all legislatures. Using the vaccine mandates as an example, I am very happy with the information that was provided by the ACT Chief Health Officer, as the resident subject matter expert – despite your alternative theory, it’s pretty obvious she was in the forefront when these decisions were made.

John McClane Actually John, transparency is fine, even ideal – as long as you don’t “throw the baby out with the bath water”, bearing in mind that not all document classification relates to National Security. I suggest if you have access to it, you do a course on security classification of government documents – perhaps then you will understand what I’m talking about. In any event I think we just have to agree to disagree on this one – and await the outcome of Ms Lee’s proposal.

Brent Hunter so what you are saying is you didnt read the article… how sad.. never mind

Angela M J Brown they’re not the government in questions are they. This government has been at the helm for over 20 years.

Harrison Busche but I would guess they would not release anything within 30 days, be real

Angela M J Brown a lazy attitude. I support any notion that holds a Government to account. To answer your initial question, yes we would expect them to do the same should they be the next Government.

That’s the million dollar question.

Well the legislation would impact who ever was in power.

Fred Pilcher I think they are just playing a game: knowing it wont get through, and probably not wanting it to get through, but it looks good and is easy to do.

Terance Waugh see my reply to Fred Pilcher.

Hans Dimpel this tin pan government is mired in secrecy. We need a clean out. We won’t get it.

Anthony Chase yes but I think any future Liberal govt also wouldn’t want less secrecy so I think the Liberals are just playing games here. It’s a good look for them to want less secrecy but they are confident nothing will change.

I wouldn’t worry about the Liberals mate. They haven’t been in power for over 22 years. This is the longest running unbroken period of one government in our history. It’s a dictatorship. That’s what happens when public servants are the biggest demographic. They always vote in their own interests.

Hans Dimpel I’m sure you’re right.

Anthony Chase I mean the Liberal policies the last election was basically nonsense. Cutting rates to deal with poverty? What kind of curly ass logic did they use come up with that.

Anthony Chase don’t you vote in your own interests? Don’t mine workers and billionaires vote in their own interests? Why wouldn’t or shouldn’t public servants vote in their own interests?

Anthony Chase It’s not a dictatorship, just the result of the pursuit of ideology at all costs on behalf of the supposed alternative government, proving at every opportunity that they shouldn’t be trusted to run a sausage sizzle, let alone the ACT. I’d quite like the ACT ALP to have a little rest and recuperation time on the Opposition benches, but certainly not when the moronic Coe was the leader of the Liberals (sic), and Lee is shaping up as no more than petty.

Terance Waugh They’d repeal it

Mark Chapman and seselja before coe. don’t forget him.

Mark Chapman Spot on Mark – if ever there was an example of the least worst option, it’s ACT elections … the lack of a credible alternative means an arogant and “past their use by date” government gets another go around the block.

Hans Dimpel I hope to forget that Seselja ever existed!

Sarah Kristine problem is tge cabinet process is being abused. A lot of directives being pushed to ACT Health during the pandemic were done so through cabinet, which makes them unobtainable through FOI and then none of these directions made in cabinet can be scrutinised for things such as being made on the advice of medical experts etc. It makes sense that we shine more light on what’s happening in cabinet, unsure why people are getting so upset about bringing more transparency to Government.

Jon Daniels I think after all the whinging they have done over the years, that an awful lot will come back and bite them in the backside… I do hope one of them has kept a list of things they ‘must do’ otherwise they are going to have a rough ride…