Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Labor supports the Royal Commissions Amendment (Protection of Information) Bill 2021, and we support the government's amendments. For some months Senator Steele-John, Labor and the government have been engaged in negotiations in relation to this bill. Those negotiations have been constructive and conducted in good faith. I would particularly like to acknowledge the efforts of Senator Steele-John and his office. This bill would amend the Royal Commissions Act 1902 and make consequential amendments to the Freedom of Information Act 1982 to ensure ongoing confidentiality protections for people giving evidence to the disability royal commission.

Prior to this bill coming on for debate, earlier this year a number of disability organisations and advocates raised concerns that the bill did not adequately protect the privacy of witnesses making allegations about systemic failings in the disability sector, including whistleblowers. The government has agreed to move amendments to further improve the protections offered by the bill. Labor supports them. Moreover, we understand that the Attorney-General has asked her department to commence a review of the Royal Commissions Act to examine any issues or impediments to people coming forward and sharing information with a royal commission. Labor also supports that review and thanks the Attorney-General for initiating it.

It is absolutely critical to the success of the disability royal commission that people feel confident about coming forward to give evidence. The royal commission must, of course, hear directly from people with disability about their experience of violence, abuse, neglect or exploitation. But it must also hear from others who may have witnessed or know about the neglect, abuse and exploitation of people with disability, including, or perhaps especially, when that neglect, abuse and exploitation is or has been systemic. The protections in this bill and in the amendments are designed to ensure that the people the royal commission needs to hear from have the confidence to come forward. I commend the bill to the Senate.

Jordon Steele-John (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

[by video link] After years of raising the reality and the alarm that the privacy protections in the royal commission were insufficient, today the disability community and the Greens have succeeded in bringing forward an amendment bill that will ensure that people are able to give information to the royal commission and to come forward to that investigation with trust. It is with an incredible range of emotions from pride and happiness in the effort of the community over that time alongside the Greens to achieve this and with a solemnity borne of the knowledge of the seriousness of the evidence that will now be taken by the commission that I speak to this absolutely important bill today.

The changes before the Senate will ensure that evidence that is confidential which is given to the commission will remain confidential after the commission ends, at the moment along a timeline of 2023. Initially, it has stronger whistleblower protections for those who bravely come forward and give evidence in relation to, and blowing whistle upon, the failings of governmental departments, of corporations or, indeed, of institutions.

With the passage of this legislation, we encourage everyone to come forward and share with the commission their experience of violence, abuse, neglect or exploitation. This bill will now ensure that, in sharing an experience with the commission, the experience and the evidence is included, and that the commission are able to hear the information needed from all of us to gain a total picture of what violence, abuse, neglect or exploitation is occurring, the settings in which it is occurring and the nature of the abuses perpetrated all across the country. It is vital to ensuring that this investigation is able to do its work.

In the context of the passage of this bill, I am also reminded of the many other investigations that have preceded it in relation to vital issues, from Aboriginal deaths in custody to the bushfires to aged care. It has been said to me, and it occurs to me very strongly at this moment, that often these investigations result in recommendations which are very slowly enacted, if at all. It will be so vital, when recommendations come from this investigation, that those recommendations are championed in the parliament and that they are swiftly and comprehensively implemented in the next term of parliament if that is when they are delivered.

To that end, I am very hopeful and I am very excited about the prospect of an increase in the Greens' representation post the next election, which would deliver us to a balance-of-power situation whereby we would be able to continue the work with the community to see those recommendations swiftly translated into comprehensive legislative reforms and the changes that we need to end violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation wherever it exists; to hold perpetrators, whether they be individuals or organisations, to account; and, on behalf of survivors, to achieve the compensation that is needed and the recognition that is needed. Doing all of these things and ensuring that programs like the NDIS function in the way that people need them to, so that they are able to access these programs and supports, will be a key priority of the Greens, going forward, as we understand it is the most vital need of the disability community. And doing all of these things in the context of an investigation that is able to hear people's evidence and to guarantee them protection, security and privacy in that process is the opportunity that is now before the community.

Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In summing up, I really do thank all senators for their contributions to this debate on the Royal Commissions Amendment (Protection of Information) Bill 2021. In particular, I would like to acknowledge the work that I have been able to do with Senator Steele-John.

The government well and truly takes violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation of people with disability very seriously. I think what this bill shows—again, working with Senator Steele-John, who has brought me firsthand experience on behalf of other people—is that the government has listened, particularly to the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse and Exploitation of People with Disability. We've also listened—and Senator Steele-John, as I've said, has brought me a number of examples—to people with disability, their families and their carers, and the broader Australian public about the importance of this. And key for this bill and what we all agree with, and, in fact, but for some amendments that the government have agreed we will move to improve the bill, this bill would have gone through as a non-contro bill because we are united in this purpose, is the importance of ensuring that people have the confidence to come forward and tell their story. As a result, the bill provides confidentiality protections for certain sensitive information that is given to the disability royal commission, by strengthening and expanding the existing protections under the Royal Commissions Act to remove any doubt about the safeguarding of confidential information beyond the life of the inquiry.

It also expands existing protections in the Royal Commissions Act to provide clarity for people that a broad range of sensitive information given to the disability royal commission will be fully protected. The bill amends the act to ensure the confidentiality of certain information given by—importantly, as I've discussed with Senator Steele-John—or on behalf of individuals to the disability royal commission is protected. The use and disclosure of information given by individuals to the commission about their or others' experiences of violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation will be limited where that information was given for purposes other than a private session and the information was treated as confidential by the commission at all times. The amendments will provide that this category of confidential information is not admissible in evidence against a person in any civil or criminal proceedings in any court of the Commonwealth, a state or a territory. Further, a provision of any law of the Commonwealth, a state or a territory would have no effect to the extent that it would otherwise require or authorise a person to make a record of, use or disclose the information. In addition, it will be an offence to disclose or use this confidential information without authority.

The bill provides that these protections will apply in circumstances where information is given on behalf of another person—for example, a carer or parent giving information on behalf of a person with disability—and also extends to cover accounts of systemic forms of violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation of people with disability, and not just individual accounts, as I discussed with Senator Steele-John. Records of the confidential information will be held securely by the custodian, the Secretary of the Attorney-General's Department, when the inquiry ends. Just like private session information, a court will be unable to compel the department to disclose this information. It will not be admissible in court proceedings, and third parties will be unable to seek this information under freedom of information regimes.

I say again that the government has given careful consideration to the development of this bill. We have also—and I do acknowledge this—consulted with the disability royal commission. As I've said, I've worked constructively with the Australian Greens and Senator Steele-John to ensure that this bill provides comprehensive protections for sensitive information. I will be moving some amendments, as I've alluded to, in the committee stage to improve the bill. Again, on behalf of the government, I do thank the Senate for the comprehensive support of this important piece of legislation and I commend the bill to the Senate.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.