CHAIR (Senator Trood) —I declare open this public hearing of the Senate Select Committee on the Reform of the Australian Federation, the third in the series of public hearings the committee is holding to inform its inquiry. The committee is to report by 12 May 2011. I welcome you all here today.

I remind everybody that witnesses giving evidence to the committee are protected by parliamentary privilege. Any act which may disadvantage a witness on account of their evidence is a breach of privilege and maybe treated by the parliament as a contempt. It is also a contempt to give false and misleading evidence to a committee. Witnesses should be aware that if in the giving of evidence they make adverse comment about another individual or organisation, that individual or organisation will be made aware of the comment and given reasonable opportunity to respond to the committee.

The committee prefers to hear evidence in public but we may agree to take evidence confidentially. The committee may still publish confidential evidence at a later date but we would consult the witnesses concerned before doing this.

[10.02 am]