Tuesday, 30 April 2024

The Clerk: Finally, I table a letter from the Attorney-General dated 29 April 2024 in response to a resolution of the Council on 15 November 2023 on the motion of Dr Ratnam relating to the redevelopment of high-rise public housing sites. In summary, the letter states that following consultation with the responsible departments, the current scope of the order would capture approximately 200,000 pages of documents, cost approximately $2 million in legal fees to review and take up to four years to produce. In the letter the Attorney-General invites the Council to pass a revised order that excludes email correspondence and specifies a confined time period for documents dated earlier than 15 November 2023 to allow the government to respond in a timely and cost-effective manner that will still capture the intent of the original order. The letter further states a range of general issues with orders for the production of documents and suggests that the scope of any further orders be drafted to precisely identify the documents sought, not require the production of all documents and set a reasonable time frame in which these documents can be located, assessed and tabled within the Council.