The Morrison Government Has Moved To Keep National Cabinet Deliberations Secret by Introducing New Legislation Intended To Blunt the Impact of a Recent Tribunal Decision That Would Have Allowed Access to Key Documents
Facebook Post By Jewell Drury Advocate For Justice
The Morrison government has moved to keep national cabinet deliberations secret by introducing new legislation intended to blunt the impact of a recent tribunal decision that would have allowed access to key documents.
The draft legislation, introduced into parliament on the last day of the sitting fortnight, follows a ruling in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal in early August that the national cabinet – comprised of the prime minister, premiers and chief ministers – was not, as Scott Morrison regularly contended, a sub-committee of the federal cabinet.
The first of it’s kind case in the AAT was brought by the Senate crossbencher Senator Rex Patrick, who argued the prime minister had no valid grounds to extend cabinet confidentiality to his regular national cabinet meetings with premiers and chief ministers.
Senator Patrick’s argument was ultimately upheld in the tribunal ruling. Justice Richard White said none of the documents sought by Patrick under the freedom of information system were an “official record of a committee of cabinet” and were, therefore, not covered by the cabinet exemption.
Scott Morrison was given 28 days to lodge an appeal the decision made by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal but time is now up.
Instead the Morrison Government introduced a bill TODAY that intends to make clear that where commonwealth legislation makes provisions to protect the secrecy of federal cabinet deliberations, those same protections extend to the “committee of cabinet known as the national cabinet”.
This bill is a cowardly and underhanded move by Scott Morrison to deliberately undermine the law and keep the truth from the general public whilst continuing with his cohorts, the State Premiers to make decisions in regards to moving forward during Covid 19, without any public accountability.
If this legislation is passed , Scott Morrison will be able to hide advice from fossil fuel executives including those advising on issues such as the so-called ‘gas led’ recovery, the national quarantine system, the rollout of vaccines to at risk groups like First Nations communities, people in aged care and people living with disability, mandatory vaccinations for truck drivers, frontline workers, police, nurses, teachers and school staff.
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Here’s what others had to say:
Bianca Braile
Too much to hide obviously!!! He belongs in prison!
Dorothy Keevers
Thank God for Jewell Drury Advocates for justice, I will be watching this space.
Sophie Willow
What is the point of democracy 🤦♀️ this is clearly not.
Lila James
These politicians are mad with power, yet no one seems to be able to stop them, so therefore they must be involved with them.
Think about who you can trust very few.
Brenden Lewis
So much for SERVING the public. SELF SERVE is bot in the publics best interest
Adriana Breen
What a low life he is & the rest of his shady bunch… 🤬
Frank Catanzaro
Just shows they have alot of cover ups!!
Jannine Jones
Morrison’s ‘National Cabinet’ is illegal under the Constitution, along with the whole corrupt government
