Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

Again, Senator Watt, you fail to clearly understand: the advice that was quite deliberately released for public consumption by the Attorney-General was not the advices we were looking for. What we would like the Australian people to see are the three secret advices. They are the advices that we would like the government to release.

Advance notice of decisions is essential, so that the Voice has the opportunity to obtain information about the matter and then make a representation if appropriate. Janet Albrechtsen has looked at this in detail. In plain English, she says:

This view is reflected in the voice design principles released by the government, which provide (among other things) that:

The voice will be able to make representations proactively.

The voice will have its own resources to allow it to research, develop and make representations.

The parliament and executive government should seek representations in writing from the voice early in the development of proposed laws and policies.

Accordingly, in addition to the specific matters listed above, the voice hereby requires you to give us advance notice …

This is the problem: how do they make the representations, Senator Watt, if they don't have the advance notice? I ask you this question: how would the Voice fulfil its function of making representations in relation to a policy or decision if it did not have any information about that policy or decision?