Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

Thanks, Senator Scarr. I can assure Senator Scarr that the legislation as it's currently drafted does provide the commissioner with the discretion to allow people who are the subject of a notice to produce or a private hearing summons to disclose that to their family members, but on a case-by-case basis. So there's not an across-the-board permission for someone who is the subject of that sort of notice to inform their spouse. That's because in many cases it may be that family members may also be subjects of the same investigation or separate investigations. They may be the beneficiaries of allegedly corrupt conduct or they may be key witnesses in their own right. Nevertheless, the legislation does provide discretion to the commissioner to allow a disclosure to a family member on a case-by-case basis.