SENATOR THE HON GEORGE BRANDIS QC

ATTORNEY-GENERAL MINISTER FOR THE ARTS 24 February 2014 TRANSCRIPT - Interview with Kieran Gilbert, Agenda, Sky News Subjects: HIP Royal Commission; Manus Island Unrest E&OE KIERAN GILBERT: I spoke to the Attorney-General a little earlier and I began by asking him about the Governments position on the Home Insulation Scheme Royal Commission. I asked him to clarify the Governments position on former Cabinet documents, will he provide those documents, the Government, if the Royal Commissioner asks, while at the same time seek to protect their confidentiality. ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Thats right in summary. But, when you say clarify Kieran, this issue has never been in need of clarification because the position that the Government takes is, as I advised Mr Dreyfus in my letter to him on the 7th of February this year, which he has chosen to misrepresent, I understand that Mr Shorten has this morning said that the Government has changed its position or hit the brakes on the position that it previously had. Thats absolutely wrong. There has never been any confusion about the Governments position. The Government will provide relevant documents sought by the Royal Commissioner. We will do so reserving our right to claim public interest immunity in relation to any particular document or class of documents. And if, once the Royal Commissioner has inspected the documents in the privacy of his chambers, he considers that there are documents that are directly relevant to his terms his reference, which he may well do, then he will notify the Commonwealth, and the Commonwealth will appear by counsel at the Royal Commission, in order to ask for orders to protect the documents from public disclosure. Theres never been any doubt about that. But the Commonwealth position has been misrepresented by Mr Dreyfus and Mr Shorten who have created a hullabaloo about nothing. KIERAN GILBERT: Attorney-General, would you expect the Royal Commissioner to respect the confidentiality of those Cabinet documents?

ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Well, as I say, in providing relevant documents required by the Royal Commissioner, the Commonwealth has in fact reserved its right to argue public interest immunity if any documents are identified which the Royal Commissioner wants to use. Now, the thing about this Royal Commission is that its terms of reference, term of reference number one, in fact, asked it to look at the decision making processes of government by which this catastrophic scheme was devised and what decisions were made. So it may very well be that the Royal Commissioner needs to look at these documents, but that doesnt mean that the confidentiality will be lost because the Commonwealth will make submissions to the Royal Commission, if it comes to this, to protect them from being disclosed. What the Labor Party has done, what Mr Dreyfus who is an experienced lawyer and Im surprised doesnt know better has been to confuse the two issues of whether the documents would be supplied and whether the documents would be made public. Under the Royal Commissions Act, the Royal Commissioner has every right to subpoena these documents, including Cabinet documents, and the Commonwealth is obliged to respond to the subpoena. But if the Royal Commissioner wants to make further use of the documents we will then appear by counsel before the Royal Commission and ask that the appropriate orders to protect their confidentiality be made. Theres never been any doubt or confusion. Thats the Governments position. Thats as I explained in clear terms to Mr Dreyfus in a letter on the 7th of February and he and his political colleagues have chosen to misrepresent the Governments position creating an unnecessary fuss about nothing. All Mr Shortens done this morning is to correct his own Shadow Attorney-Generals confusion. KIERAN GILBERT: But theres no guarantee that the Royal Commissioner will protect the confidentiality of the documents is there? ATTORNEY-GENERAL: I cant anticipate what the Royal Commissioner might say. Under the Royal Commissions Act the Royal Commissioner may demand by subpoena the production of these documents and it would be in contempt for the Commonwealth not to provide the documents. But the issue here is the issue of confidentiality. The Commonwealth will, if it comes to this, make appropriate submissions to the Royal Commissioner for appropriate protections to the confidentiality of the documents. KIERAN GILBERT: Would it be damaging to the Cabinet process if that convention of more than 110 years was breached? ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Its not question of breaching any conventions. What the Royal Commissioner decides to do is entirely a matter for the Royal Commissioner and I dont want to anticipate or foreshadow an argument that may or not take place in the Royal Commission should the occasions arise that the Commonwealth asks for public interest immunity to be respected in order to protect the confidentiality of documents. I think we arent at that point of the process yet. But what I wanted to do is to reassure you and reassure your viewers that the assertions that have been made by Mr Dreyfus, who as an experienced lawyer you would have thought would know better, that we are breaching the confidentiality

of Cabinet papers is not only false, but known by Mr Dreyfus to be false because I couldnt have made the position any clearer to him in my letter to him on the 7th of February. KIERAN GILBERT: And finally Attorney-General, the Greens have called for Scott Morrison to be sacked, the Labor leader Bill Shorten says if hes not well then youd have to ask what it takes to be sacked from the Abbott Government. Could this have been handled better in response to the Manus Island unrest? ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Mr Morrison has done a superb job in showing that what the Labor Party said couldnt be done can be done with good policy and a government with the will to implement that policy. And Mr Morrison, when he spoke on Tuesday, was addressing the issue of the riot at Manus Island on the basis of the information that was then available to him. When different conflicting information from Manus Island came to his attention a few days later he moved swiftly to correct the record. What Mr Morrison was doing was exactly what the Labor Party and the Greens have been saying for months now he should have done and that is to provide the public with the most timely and recent information at his disposal. Now theyre criticising him for doing the very thing they said he should have been doing. KIERAN GILBERT: time. Attorney-General, Senator George Brandis, I appreciate your

ATTORNEY-GENERAL: [Ends]

Thank you Kieran.