Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

Just to be clear, what I'm trying to understand is that the terms of reference and the powers of this particular taskforce will be such that it will be the body that determines what information is publicly available. There will not be any other process. I raise this because we saw, during the aged care taskforce, the members put under non-disclosure agreements as part of the deliberations of the taskforce, and we've seen an unusual use of NDAs happen on many, many other occasions. I certainly understand that when they're in commercially sensitive situations, an NDA is an appropriate thing to be used, but in the case of the deliberations of the aged-care taskforce it seemed like somebody was actually trying to make sure that the taskforce was gagged in terms of being able to speak about the things that it was deliberating on. I am keen to be assured, which you appear to be doing at the moment, that the transition taskforce will not be subject to a nondisclosure agreement in any way, shape or form, and it will be the taskforce itself that has power to make the determination as to what information is publicly available because it believes it's in the best interests of a successful transition to this new reform package. I note you said it will be co-chaired by the deputy chair of the Department of Health and Aged Care, so I am assuming that's Mr Lye. Who is the other co-chair, and what is the process in terms of determining what information will be publicly available?