Opinion
The decisions by the Treasurer, the Hon Ben Wyatt MLA, not to provide Parliament with the requested information were not reasonable and therefore not appropriate, as the information was already publicly known.
Background
This Opinion deals with 2 identical parliamentary questions about the forward estimates of revenue loss to government if the payroll tax-free threshold is increased from $850,000 to $1 million.
Legislative Council Question Without Notice 856 part (4)
In Parliament on 28 November 2017, the Hon Jacqui Boydell MLC asked the Minister representing the Treasurer:
What would be the overall cost to government in lost revenue from raising the payroll taxation threshold to $1 million over the forward estimates?
The Minister replied:
The government is considering changes to the payroll-tax-free threshold as part of the 2018-19 budget and any existing indicative analysis will inform cabinet’s decision-making.
Legislative Council Question Without Notice 885 part (3)
In Parliament on 29 November 2017, the Hon Colin Holt MLC asked the Minister representing the Treasurer:
What would be the overall cost to government in lost revenue from raising the payroll taxation threshold to $1 million over the forward estimates?
The Minister replied:
The government is considering changes to the payroll tax-free threshold as part of the 2018-19 budget and any existing indicative analysis will inform the decision making of cabinet.
On 21 December 2017, the Treasurer notified the Auditor General of his decisions not to provide the requested information in accordance with section 82 of the FM Act.
Key findings
The decisions by the Treasurer not to provide the requested information were not reasonable and therefore not appropriate.
The Treasurer declined to provide the information to Parliament on the basis that it formed part of policy options being prepared for Cabinet and therefore subject to public interest immunity. The Treasurer did not seek advice from the Department of Treasury before responding to the request.
The core principle of Cabinet confidentiality is to protect information that would reveal deliberations and decisions of Cabinet. In considering the Treasurer’s decision, we followed the approaches laid out in our previous Opinions on Ministerial Notification dealing with Cabinet-in-confidence[1].
However, we did not carry out a full assessment of the requested information against these considerations, as we found the information was generally known or ascertainable at the time the Treasurer declined to provide it. The overall cost to government had been provided to Parliament 3 weeks earlier:
- On 7 November 2017 – the Treasurer advised Parliament during the second reading of the Payroll Tax Assessment Amendment (Debt and Deficit Remediation) Bill 2017 (the Bill) in the Legislative Assembly that:
“If we increased the threshold to $1 million, the impact across the forward estimates would be $139 million…”.
The transcript of the second reading is publicly available on the Parliament website.
- On 7 December 2017 – the Minister representing the Treasurer, advised the Legislative Council during the debate discussing the Bill that:
“Increasing the threshold will flow through to all taxpayers with wages up to $7.5 million at a cost of $139 million over the forward estimates … the Treasurer gave this information in the Legislative Assembly” (on 7 November 2017).
The transcript of the debate is publicly available on the Parliament website.
While we acknowledge that the Treasurer’s written notice to Parliament included consideration of whether sections or a redacted copy of the information could be provided, it did not consider if the information was already publicly available.
[1] Office of the Auditor General 2016 Report 18: Opinions on Ministerial Notifications