Proposed subsection 26(2) provides for two years imprisonment for copying a bill! This is really extraordinary stuff. Two years in jail—in a steel cage, like an animal—for making a copy of a bill! … In my 10 or 12 years—whatever it was—on the back bench in the state house in Queensland, not on one single occasion did we allow through a provision such as proposed subsection 26(2). We were supposed to be a bit of a right-wing, redneck government in Queensland, yet for 12 years not one single clause of that nature got through that parliament. I do not have time to go into the details of that.
Mr Katter’s contribution to the debate appears to have been to his usual standard, and is another manifestation of the robustness of the Australian democracy.
Let’s break with PPRuNE tradition, and ascertain the facts and debate the substantial merits, or lack of them, of the Bill. Let’s start with clause 26.
Clause 26 of the Transport Safety Investigation Bill 2002 (copy available at:
http://www.aph.gov.au/bills/index.htm actually says:
26 Draft reports
(1) The Executive Director may provide a draft report, on a confidential basis, to any person whom the Executive Director considers appropriate, for the purpose of:
(a) allowing the person to make submissions to the Executive Director about the draft report; or
(b) giving the person advance notice of the likely form of the published report.
(2) A person who receives a draft report under subsection (1) or (4) must not:
(a) make a copy of the whole or any part of the report; or
(b) disclose any of the contents of the report to any other person or to a court.
Maximum penalty: Imprisonment for 2 years.
Note that the prohibition upon copying and disclosure relates to
draft reports.
According to the Explanatory Memorandum to the Bill, the Division of the Bill of which section 26 is a part provides among other things for
…the release of confidential draft reports, and protection of the draft report from further release including disclosure for the purposes of legal proceedings or disciplinary actions. The Bill clarifies that draft reports are not admissible in evidence in civil or criminal proceedings, including coronial inquiries. The same provision applies to final reports (with the exception of coronial inquiries).
In my view, clause 26 of the Bill is
beneficial to
pilots and other persons whose interests might be affected by the contents of a factually inaccurate draft report.
Let’s imaging you’re the PIC of an aircraft involved in an accident. The ATSB sends a copy of the draft investigation report to you, your employer and CASA, for the purpose of giving each of you an opportunity to correct, clarify or supplement any information it contains. Your employer jumps for joy and gives the draft report to the press, because it implicitly attributes sole responsibility for the accident to you, but based on information that you know and can prove is inaccurate and incomplete. The headlines the next day will be much bigger than the correction printed two months later. The draft report turns up as evidence in a negligence action taken against you. It must be probative: it was produced by the experts at the ATSB.
I’d prefer there to be a very onerous obligation upon recipients of draft reports not to copy or disclose them to anyone.
I hope that anyone who disagrees with my interpretation will explain their reasons, by reference to what the Bill actually says.