Opinion
The decision by the Minister for Emergency Services, the Hon Francis Logan MLA, not to provide Parliament with details of the government review of aircraft owned and leased by the State was reasonable and therefore appropriate.
Background
In an additional question to the 2017-18 Estimates and Financial Operations Committee budget estimates hearings on 18 October 2017, the Hon Martin Aldridge MLC asked the Minister for Emergency Services for the following information:
- I refer to the South West Emergency Rescue Helicopter Service and the lack of funding beyond 2017-18 and the claim by the government that it is undertaking a whole of government review of aircraft owned and leased by the State and I ask:
(a) Which agency is undertaking the review;
(b) What are the terms of reference;
(c) Who is conducting the review;
(d) When is the review due to report; and
(e) Will the review be made public?
On 4 December 2017, the Minister declined to give this information, replying:
Answer: (a)-(e) This matter is currently before Cabinet and further information will be provided at the appropriate time.
On 8 January 2018, the Minister notified the Auditor General of his decision not to provide the requested information in accordance with section 82 of the FM Act.
Key findings
The decision by the Minister not to provide the requested information was reasonable and therefore appropriate.
The Minister declined to provide the information to Parliament because it forms the basis of a submission to the Expenditure Review Committee and is therefore subject to public interest immunity. The Minister did not seek advice.
In considering the Minister’s decision, we followed the approaches laid out in previous Opinions on Ministerial Notifications dealing with Cabinet confidentiality, the core principle of which is to protect information that would reveal deliberations and decisions of Cabinet. We assessed the requested information against the following Cabinet confidentiality considerations:
Is part or all of the information publicly available?
We could not find the information requested about the whole-of-government aircraft review in publicly available sources at the time the Minister declined to provide it.
Was the information created for the purpose of informing Cabinet or being discussed in Cabinet? Does it include policy options or recommendations prepared for submission to Cabinet?
We reviewed Cabinet documents and found they included options and recommendations for a whole-of-government review of aircraft owned and leased by the State. The documents were prepared for submission to Cabinet and included information relevant to all parts of the question asked.
Does the information contain material that would reveal the deliberations and decisions of Cabinet?
The Minister’s section 82 FM Act notification to Parliament expanded on his decision not to provide the information stating that the information forms a submission to the Expenditure Review Committee and would be used by Cabinet to make decisions. We assessed the information and found it could reveal deliberations or decisions of Cabinet about a review of aircraft owned or leased by the State.
Did the Minister consider providing any sections of the information that would not reveal deliberations and decisions of Cabinet?
The Minister stated in his notification to Parliament that he had considered providing the information with the Cabinet-in-confidence sections redacted. However, he found this was not possible because the material subject to Cabinet confidentiality was so extensive that the information would be devoid of meaning and context.
We agree that the information could not meaningfully be provided with Cabinet-in-confidence information redacted.