In a legal battle with implications for government transparency, Jacinta Allan’s Premier’s Office is fighting to keep secret hundreds of documents from the time of former premier Daniel Andrews.
Lawyers for the Premier’s office are arguing in the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal that the documents – relating to the fatally flawed hotel quarantine program – are no longer available under freedom of information laws after Mr Andrews resigned last September.
The opposition has accused the former Premier of stalling the case to avoid scrutiny, saying the case could set a precedent and allow the government to block access to thousands of his government documents.
The case centres on a Freedom of Information request made in 2021 by Liberal MP David Davis for access to correspondence between the former prime minister, his chief of staff Lissie Ratcliff and his ministry about the hotel quarantine.
The Premiers Office had agreed to hand over hundreds of documents, but now claims it no longer has access to some of them, or is not legally obliged to do so, following Mr Andrews’ departure.
“This is a blatant attempt to circumvent the Freedom of Information Act, this is a novel argument that because he is no longer Premier, he no longer has access to documents from his time as Premier, Mr Davis told the court, adding:
“I believe he has access to those documents. I believe the court has access to those documents. I believe we have access to those documents and they could well be examined.”
Yesterday, however, Premier Jacinta Allan claimed she “did not know” where the documents were and what the case involved.
“I don’t know the specific circumstances behind all the documents because they are clearly not my documents,” she said.
Ms Allan said she expected government agencies and officials to “comply with the requirements of any legal framework that governs their work”. However, she claimed she could not provide further details because the case was “before VCAT”.
Mr Davis said his request was for documents central to government decision-making. “We believe the process is important … it involves very important government decisions,” he said.
“People will look back at the period of the pandemic and the period when the virus escaped the quarantine of the hotel and spread unchecked through the community … resulting in the deaths of too many Victorians.
It is difficult to think of a set of decisions beyond the introduction of the hotel quarantine that had a greater impact on the Victorian community.
It would be strange if the claim that because Daniel Andrews is no longer Premier … the Freedom of Information Act request could be defeated,” he concluded.
