Prime Minister & Cabinet 'strongly rejects' Rex Patrick's allegations senior public servant is 'politicised'

The South Australian senator accused Prime Minister and Cabinet assistant secretary Angie McKenzie on Tuesday afternoon of doing the federal government's bidding after she blocked access to secret national cabinet documents.

Senator Patrick labelled Ms McKenzie as "incompetent" and acting in an "abhorrent way" after a number of his freedom-of-information requests to the central department for national cabinet meeting minutes, agendas and decisions were pushed back, citing cabinet in confidence exemptions.

But the central department has hit back at Senator Patrick's claims, calling them "unwarranted" and "untrue".

"The department will take all necessary action to set the record straight," a PM&C spokesperson told The Canberra Times on Wednesday afternoon.

"The officer against whom this attack was made operates with the highest levels of integrity and probity.

"Unjustified personal attacks, such as this, against officers of the APS directly undermine public confidence in Australia's democratic institutions, and impact on the welfare of individual staff."

The fresh dispute came months after a ruling by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal declared the national cabinet was not considered a committee of cabinet and therefore could not use blanket exemptions to prevent public access.

Senator Patrick has been growing increasingly frustrated by the department's refusal to hand over documents despite the ruling by the Federal Court judge.

He decided to use his parliamentary privilege on Tuesday to name the senior bureaucrat who had handed down the decision.

"I'm naming her as incompetent and I'm naming her as politicised," the senator said on Tuesday afternoon.

"She has been directed to make a decision contrary to law because it suits the Prime Minister, because the Prime Minister doesn't want anyone to know about anything that happens in national cabinet."

"The government has directed an official to apply secrecy in contravention to the ruling of a judicial officer. I've never seen that before, and I think it breaks the rule of law."

He added that it was part of delaying tactics to stall the release of any documents ahead of the federal election, expected to take place before the end of May next year.

He said it was a "disgrace" that Ms McKenzie seemed to be in on the plan.

But the PM&C spokesperson said Ms McKenzie was under no obligation to follow the tribunal's previous ruling, adding it was not binding.

"The Administrative Appeals Tribunal is a merits review body and does not make binding decisions in the same way as a court," the spokesperson said.

"A decision-maker under the FOI Act is entitled to review additional facts to those available to the AAT before making their decision.

"As in any case, if an applicant is unhappy with the outcome of a decision, they have rights to seek review of decisions under the FOI Act."

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Senator Patrick said he wouldn't typically name a public servant in Parliament, but had felt it necessary as she was being incompetent.

"I respect public servants, but not when they are politicised like this," he said.

"Fifty applications have been made to PM&C for access to national cabinet documents since the decision was handed down by Justice White.

"And that's likely to be 50 decisions wrongly made by PM&C that go off to the Information Commissioner and clog up the entire system. And that may well suit those on the other side of the chamber, who love secrecy."

Nearly two months after the AAT ruling, the government proposed new legislation enabling national cabinet deliberations to remain secret.

A government-majority Senate committee said laws should pass, with Coalition chair Senator Claire Chandler adding it was not unreasonable for government heads to want to discuss and make important decisions with the "protection of confidentiality".

But opposition and crossbench senators, including Senator Patrick, criticised the law for extending the "tentacles of secrecy", diminishing public knowledge on important issues and setting a dangerous precedent for future governments.

Sufficient protections in freedom-of-information laws were already in place to protect Commonwealth-state relations and deliberative processes, Labor's dissenting report said.

Senator Patrick said it was important for transparency that government documents are only exempted from the public's view under a very small set of circumstances.

"The news is that everything that a government does is paid for by the public and is supposed to be for the benefit of the public, and the public are entitled to see it, except in very narrow circumstances," he said.

"This is just an abuse."

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