Brendan Ryan (Labour)

I have no problem with a prohibition on the disclosure of confidential information but such information should be information which is exempted under the Freedom of Information Act. If we were in earnest about it, we would decide information is confidential if it is exempt information under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act.

I would like the Minister to explain how something could be confidential and yet be capable of being disclosed under the Freedom of Information Act. There is no fit. It seems the existence of the Freedom of Information Act, and its definition of exempt information which is not covered by freedom of information, is not something that has got through to the Parliamentary Counsel, so we have a ridiculous situation where confidential information means "information that is expressed by the Authority to be confidential". That is like Alice in Wonderland where a word means what I say it means.

The Bill ought to state that confidential information is information which is exempt from the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act, in which case the procedures of the Act will adjudicate, not the internal ramifications of the body. That ought to be the operating procedure. I have no objection to genuinely confidential information being confidential. It should be taken seriously and should never be disclosed because it can be sensitive information. However, I have an objection to sloppiness of drafting.