Senator COONEY (6:45 PM) —I want to deal with some matters contained in the annual report of the Department of Industrial Relations, specifically sub-program 1.2—Legal and standards, on page 25 of the report. On page 25 there is a section headed `Objectives'. The department's objectives are:

To promote the development and maintenance of an effective legislative and institutional framework.

To ensure that departmental strategies and operations are founded on a sound legal basis and meet applicable legal requirements.

To promote the development of national policy and standards for workers' compensation and OHS.

To support Australia's interests in relation to industrial relations and other labour administration matters at the international level.

It then goes on and describes legal services groups. The legal matters that the department deals with are set out in some detail in the area of the report that I am talking about.

I want to make this point: oftentimes in this chamber when the Senate asks for a legal document, or indeed documents generally, they are refused on the basis that these matters may be sub judice. I want to address that. The idea of sub judice should not be one that covers, as a blanket statement, all documents that are asked for. There should be some examination, not merely of the category of documents but of all documents within a category, to see whether or not they justify the label of a matter which would break the sub judice rule. This report of the Department of Industrial Relations gives some basis for that because it gives quite a defined categorisation of the sorts of things that legal activities should be directed to.

The matters that are listed hardly seem to be ones that would justify the taking of the defence of sub judice. One of the categories relates to Australia's interests in relation to industry relations and other labour administrative matters at the international level. That is the sort of thing that not only this parliament but also the public in general ought to know about. I am taking these matters at random. Another objective is to ensure that departmental strategies and operations are founded on a sound legal basis and meet applicable legal requirements. If there was a legal opinion that had something to say about that test, again, that is something that this parliament ought to know about and that the public generally should know about.

What I am apprehensive about is that there is a risk that objections by the department to producing documents based on the sub judice rule, or indeed any rule—and it is the department, of course, that passes up the information to the minister—are being taken too readily and without being properly tested. A reading of the Industrial Relations report in the area that I have spoken about illustrates what I am talking about.

Question resolved in the affirmative.