He''s a vigilant determined defender of the spirit and intent of freedom of information.
May the wind be at his back!
In the Senate on Tuesday Senator Rex Patrick recounted a drawn out and eventually unsuccessful attempt by the Department of Prime Minister to deny access to the complete performance audit report into the handling of a $1.3 billion dollar Defence contract for the procurement of the Hawkei light protected mobility vehicle from Thales Australia Ltd.
The government had refused to table the complete report in response to a Senate Order; Attorney General Porter issued a (rare?unprecedented?) certificate under the Auditor General's Act preventing disclosure of parts of the report on public interest grounds; and various FOI exemption claims, some dropped on the way, were advanced on this journey to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.
Deputy President Britten-Jones concluded no additional harm to national security or Thales commercial interests would result from disclosure, given information already in the public domain in a redacted version of the report, and information made available by Thales when it commenced Federal Court proceedings in January 2018.
The Deputy President[ 70-78] was dismissive of another claim that the Auditor General's analysis and conclusions involved deliberative processes: "Rather than disclosing a deliberative process, the Redacted Report discloses a final conclusion based on an analysis of factual findings.....Section 47C does not operate to disallow access to a report of this nature generated by an independent officer of the Parliament exercising his statutory functions. The Disputed Material is not conditionally exempt under s 47C(1) of the FOI Act."
Senator Patrick posted the report and relevant documentation following notification the decision will not be appealed, observing
"In this matter the Attorney-General’s judgement was clearly unsound. He was incapable of properly assessing national security claims This raises a most serious question - what else has the Attorney-General got wrong in the national security space?”
Indeed.
Senator Patrick in the Senate 2 February
