ART Chair, Fiona McLeod AO SC, Professor Spencer Zifcak, Stuart Hamilton and Dr Ken Coghill appeared today before the Senate Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee into the COAG Legislation Amendment Bill 2021.
Here is the video of our presentation to the inquiry – it’s well worth watching!
Here is the link to the ABC report.
And the Accountability Round Table, an organisation made of experts with a keen eye on issues of integrity in politics, said there were flaws in how the legislation was drafted.
It argued it wasn’t legally valid to extend cabinet confidentiality at a Commonwealth level to a committee made up of members from state and territory parliaments — ie premiers and chief ministers.
“The method that’s been chosen not only casts the net of secrecy very widely, but it represents a frontal attack on the entire constitutional system of responsible government,” Professor Spencer Zifcak told the committee.
“We think that this is a very wayward, if not entirely wrong way of going about some measure of confidentiality of National Cabinet’s proceedings.”
See here for our submission and here for our press release.