Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Deputy Speaker, I rise to inform the House about a possible matter of privilege. This morning the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs tabled its report, Our land our languages. On Friday 14 September the committee provided embargoed copies of the report to selected media outlets. I provided interviews to some media outlets, they knowing that the report was embargoed until tabled.

I inform the House that at midnight yesterday the Australian newspaper published an article on its website with information about the recommendations in the committee report. The same article was published by the Australian in its print newspaper release this morning in advance of the tabling of the committee report. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs Committee will discuss this matter of unauthorised disclosure at its meeting on Thursday. Following this the committee will provide a report to the House.