George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Wright, I love this topic and I could talk to you about it for hours. Let me point out why the example you have given is not germane. In order to attract lawyer-client privilege, the relevant information has to be information arising during the course of the lawyer-client relationship. It has to be information arising or exchanged in the course of the lawyer's retainer. If a person happens to be a friend of a lawyer and visits them at their home for a barbecue, let us say, and they have a conversation, obviously what passes between the lawyer and the client during that social conversation is not protected by lawyer-client privilege merely because one of the interlocutors happens to be a lawyer and the other happens to be a client of his for other purposes.

With the example you have given, if a particular lawyer's client was a whistleblower, well, he was a whistleblower—it has nothing to do with the lawyer-client relationship, the terms of the retainer; the scope of that which is protected is confidential information arising in the course of that relationship.