It could be the greatest courtroom confrontation since Rake or Rumpole of the Bailey, but sadly, one of the key protagonists has commitments that will prevent him appearing in person in the Sydney law courts on Friday.
The shadow attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, will today represent himself in an administrative case he has launched against the attorney general, George Brandis.
Dreyfus has, since May 2014, been seeking access under freedom of information laws to the attorney’s ministerial calendar of appointments.
Thus far, the request has been refused on the basis that access to the Brandis outlook calendar would “substantially and unreasonably” interfere with the performance of the minister’s function.
Dreyfus has objected to this reasoning, arguing that printing off an outlook calendar is a task that would take a matter of minutes for anyone with the most rudimentary IT skills.
The attorney general’s chief of staff, Paul O’Sullivan, has in turn rejected this analysis, arguing the request would occupy at least 40 hours of the attorney general’s time and would require third-party consultation with security agencies about whether “the possible release of documents may constitute a security risk to the attorney general or others”.
Brandis will not appear in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal on Friday morning, but O’Sullivan is expected to be available for cross-examination.
Ahead of Friday morning’s hearing, Dreyfus told Guardian Australia the attorney general had a responsibility to treat freedom of information requests seriously, but “senator Brandis thinks he’s above the rules”.
“He has no interest in accountability. His own officials have admitted that they play ‘hardball’ on FOI and he has slashed funding to the FOI watchdog and plans to abolish it altogether,” Dreyfus said.
“FOI is a vital tool for maintaining transparent, accountable government,” he said. “Australians have a right to know what the government is doing. They have a right to know what senior government ministers are doing with their time, who they’re meeting with, who they’re being lobbied by.”
In 2010, Liberal MP Paul Fletcher sought access to the diary of then prime minister Julia Gillard, and the request was refused by the prime minister’s office for the same reasons being invoked in the Brandis matter.
The information commissioner subsequently overturned the refusal.
A spokesman for the attorney general declined to comment ahead of proceedings in the tribunal.
