Wednesday, 1 May 2024

Production of documents

Commonwealth Games

David LIMBRICK (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (10:30): I move:

That this house:

(1) notes that the government has claimed executive privilege regarding certain documents outlined in appendix D of the interim report into the 2026 Commonwealth Games bid;

(2) affirms the privileges, immunities and powers conferred on the Council pursuant to section 19 of the Constitution Act 1975 and the power to make standing orders under section 43 of that act;

(3) affirms the right of the Council to require the production of documents;

(4) requires the Leader of the Government to table in the Council, in accordance with standing order 10.01, within 30 days of the house agreeing to this resolution, copies of documents over which executive privilege was claimed, as per appendix D of the interim report into the 2026 Commonwealth Games bid, in response to:

(a) questions on notice 1.2, 6, 7, 9, 15, 16, and additional questions 6 and 8, asked on Wednesday 9 October 2023 to the Department of Jobs, Skills, Industry and Regions (DJSIR);

(b) question on notice 7, asked on Monday 9 October 2023, to the Office of the Commonwealth Games;

(c) question on notice 1, asked on Monday 9 October 2023, to the Department of Premier and Cabinet (DPC);

(d) question on notice 7, asked on Friday 13 October 2023, to the Department of Treasury and Finance (DTF);

(e) question on notice 4, asked on Tuesday 5 December 2023, to DJSIR;

(f) documents summoned on Thursday 8 November 2023 from DPC, including three briefing notes and the table containing information about claims of executive privilege; and

(g) documents summoned on Thursday 8 November 2023 from DTF, including six briefing notes and three extra pieces of correspondence.

This also is a documents motion requesting certain documents from the government, but I think I should explain the genesis of this motion and where it came from. As was revealed yesterday in the Commonwealth Games report that was tabled, there were a number of documents that were requested by various committee members, through both questions on notice to people who appeared before the committee and also documents that the committee sought fit to request from the government, and for a number of these documents executive privilege was claimed. What this documents motion does is refer to all of the documents which were not supplied and for which executive privilege was claimed, which are outlined in appendix D of the report, which as I said, includes various things such as questions on notice et cetera. I will say that these requests were not ones that were made by me personally; they were made by various members of the committee.

As was detailed in the report yesterday, there is some, let us say, debate about the width of executive privilege. In fact executive privilege was claimed over a vast number of documents that were requested, and there is some debate about whether the government’s position or another position is in fact correct. I do not claim to be an expert on executive privilege, but fortunately we have many learned people who work for Parliament that have been able to provide advice, and you will see the outcome of that in the report.

Another thing that is outlined in the report is that the avenues for challenging this are quite limited, and in fact I can only see two options available to me. As chair of the committee I feel that it is my responsibility to try and attempt to exhaust every available avenue that is reasonable. There are two available avenues left to me. Firstly, I could mount a legal challenge. I do not support doing this. I think that the Victorian taxpayers have suffered enough over this, and that will cost an absolute fortune and be a very long and drawn-out process, so I do not think that that is a reasonable thing to do. The last thing I want to do is waste even more taxpayers money on this exercise.

However, the Legislative Council has a rather neat mechanism, contained in chapter 10 of our standing orders, designed to resolve exactly this type of dispute. The way that it should work is that if a document is requested by this Council – so if this motion were to pass – then the documents would be requested from the government. In this case, unlike other documents requests where the government comes back and says it is going to take more time to find them, these documents have already been identified. The government has already identified the documents. They have already assessed them, and they have claimed executive privilege on them. If the government report back to this chamber that they maintain that claim of executive privilege, then the process is meant to be that those documents should be provided to the Clerk and also provided to me, the mover of the motion. Then I would be able to examine those documents and the government’s claim of executive privilege. If I determine that the government’s claim is valid – as it may well be; I do not know, as I have not seen them – then I would report back to the house and I would give my commitment that I had looked at these documents and agree with the government’s claim that they should remain under executive privilege. However, if I disagree, Parliament has a process whereby I can challenge that, and then the President would appoint an independent arbiter. This would be someone who presumably is very learned about these processes and would be able to make an independent assessment.

I do not challenge the notion of executive privilege. Indeed I fully appreciate that some things must not be released to the public from government because they may endanger members of the public, they may undermine trust, they may not be in the public interest, they may out people – all sorts of reasons that privilege or redaction may be necessary. I do not dispute that sometimes that is necessary. However, my experience with documents motions and indeed my experience during this committee has been that the government has claimed a very, very wide definition of executive privilege. Indeed in the last term of Parliament and in this term as well, I think many members here would concur that documents that we request rarely turn up. What usually happens is that we get a letter stating that it is taking too much time, or the government claims privilege, or this and that.

I note the Attorney-General’s comments yesterday that she would be willing to work with members who are considering these types of motions to make sure they are not asking for things that are unreasonable, and I welcome that offer by the Attorney-General. I do concede that maybe some of the documents requests that have come from this chamber may result in hundreds of thousands of documents and maybe it is unwieldy or too expensive, so maybe that would be a good process if we could discuss that first before putting forward these requests. Nevertheless my experience has been that the government has been quite unwilling in the past, indeed even on things that are very much in the public interest. I note the one set of documents that I brought up many times in the last term of Parliament was the human rights charter assessments for the emergency powers that were used during the pandemic. To my mind there would be few documents that would be more in the public interest than these – to understand the reasoning of why the rights of Victorians were being limited, and instead we were just asked to trust the experts and told that the government was doing this to save lives – a totally unreasonable proposition. Indeed after the pandemic bill was eventually passed in early 2022, the government finally did release summaries of the human rights charter assessments, and I would say my opinion is that they were far less than satisfactory. Indeed the underlying evidence and science that were being used to justify some of those orders did not make sense at all, I would say.

To that effect, I hope that members will support this motion. I consider it part of my responsibility as chair to try and exhaust every reasonable mechanism to access these documents, which have been requested by various members of the committee. I hope, if some of these documents are determined to be not subject to executive privilege, that they will help inform the committee’s deliberations for the remainder of the inquiry and help us report back on the insights that are gained by the committee. With that in mind, I commend this motion to the house.

Jacinta ERMACORA (Western Victoria) (10:38): As Mr Limbrick has already mentioned, this motion addresses the principle of executive privilege. The issue of executive privilege is definitely, you could say, a fraught and contested space. I definitely acknowledge that. It is important to maintain the principle of privacy for citizens. It is important to maintain, where relevant, commercial confidentiality, and it is important to retain the confidentiality of legal advice and a number of other considerations. While we must uphold the principle of executive privilege, there is nothing wrong with testing this space, and I appreciate Mr Limbrick is doing so here today.

The Select Committee on the 2026 Commonwealth Games Bid is the context in which we are really talking about executive privilege today. I would like to make it really clear that the position of the government on executive privilege is very carefully considered, and it is definitely referenced in a letter from the Premier on 7 October 2023 to the committee which outlines the government’s position on claims of executive privilege.

The general course of action is the government receives detailed legal advice, including from the Victorian Government Solicitor’s Office, to inform its decisions to claim executive privilege. Matters that the government considers include whether documents would do some of the following: reveal directly or indirectly the deliberative process of cabinet; reveal high-level confidential deliberative processes of the executive government or otherwise genuinely jeopardise the necessary relationship of trust and confidence between a minister and public officials, and I will go into that space in a few minutes; possibly reveal information obtained by the executive government on the basis that it would be kept confidential, including because the documents are subject to statutory confidentiality provisions that apply to Parliament; reveal confidential legal advice to the executive government; otherwise jeopardise the public interest on an established basis, in particular where disclosure would prejudice national security or public safety; prejudice law enforcement investigations; materially damage the state’s financial or commercial interests, such as ongoing tender processes or changes in taxation policy – and in fact you can be prosecuted for breaches in those areas of confidentiality; prejudice intergovernmental and diplomatic relations; or prejudice legal proceedings that are currently underway. So there is a very long list of considerations when it comes to executive privilege, and it would not be appropriate to comment on individual government decisions to claim executive privilege in respect of particular documents. However, I would like to address the expansive amount of work which has been undertaken to respond to questionnaires, summonses and requests from the select committee. As a member, I have been very pleased to be present at this.

The interim report of the select committee acknowledges that 10 government departments provided detailed questionnaires to the committee, and not just government departments but also Development Victoria, the EPA, the Kardinia Park Stadium Trust, the Victorian 2026 Commonwealth Games organising committee, Victoria Police and Visit Victoria. Witnesses including ministers, departmental secretaries and many other government officials appeared before the committee. As recently as Monday 29 April government released to the committee some 234 documents, and with this comes an enormous amount of work and responsibility that must go into reviewing documents and ensuring that highly sensitive information is not disclosed to the detriment of the Victorian community, as I referred to previously. This includes examining each document for information relating to security, the disclosure of which may damage the state’s financial interests. This is detailed and painstaking work and goes to the point that confidential information must be treated with respect for all participants of an inquiry.

In reflecting on this motion and the principles associated with it, it did bring back memories of when I was studying for my masters in policy and management. I did a unit on the theory of bureaucracy, and I must admit at the very start, before I started the unit, I was very cynical about whether or not anybody had studied bureaucracy, whether or not there was any research and whether or not there were any valid theories associated with bureaucracy. I am sure there are people in this room that realise or know that that is a very ignorant position. When I was doing that unit, I did learn an enormous amount about the various models of approaching public service and that there are a considered and conscious set of values and principles based on theory that drive how the public service works. One of those principles in the Westminster system is that of frank and fearless advice – advice without fear or favour and advice that is independent advice.

I feel that with this motion one of the important principles to take into account is that, if every government or departmental document was completely open, disregarding all of the principles I mentioned earlier in this speech, the writers of those documents would start to pivot to a new audience, which would be the public and the media, rather than providing necessarily accurate information. Sometimes when you are in government, whether you are on a sporting club committee, whether you are on a local council or whether you are in state government or federal government making decisions, you receive advice you do not want to hear. If you rearrange things so that you only receive advice that you do want to hear, you will end up making decisions without considering all of the variables, and invariably that will result in poor decision-making. So I think related to this motion is that principle of independence of public service and the importance of maintaining that respect and confidentiality of advice that public servants provide to governments. With that I will finish my remarks.

David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (10:47): I rise to support Mr Limbrick’s motion 382, which comes directly out of the tabling yesterday of the interim report of the 2026 Commonwealth Games select committee and relates to the documents on which executive privilege has been claimed by government. There is no question that what occurred at the committee is an attempt to nobble the committee, to make it more difficult for the committee to get to the bottom of a number of key matters, and that the government’s decision to block the release of a slew of documents is a very deliberate activity that is designed to frustrate the committee and prevent people getting to the truth. I for that reason support this motion brought by Mr Limbrick and compliment him on his work on the committee, other committee members and also the committee staff, as I said yesterday, who did a remarkable job in the face of some of these attempts to block the release of information.

Ms Ermacora has made some points about surveys that were sent out and were answered in large measure but not completely. There were claims there too. That is one aspect of this. But a series of documents was sought that we should properly have had access to, and the government has, as I say, on a wide front, outlined best in appendix D of the interim report, sought to block the release of this information. So this motion will be a useful step forward.

I pick up a point that Mr Limbrick made, which was also referred to by Ms Ermacora, that the government is prepared to discuss some of these matters. I welcome that, and I think it is important and I think that the government ought to be prepared to discuss some of these matters and engage. We already have a large slew of documents that have been blocked by the government that were subject to discussion yesterday.

I note that yesterday I had a response from one of the people on the government side that pointed at our period in government, and I just thought it was worth putting on the record so that people know particularly the ability for the chamber to engage with these matters: in the 57th Parliament the Legislative Council passed 38 requests for documents, not one of which was opposed by the Baillieu–Napthine government members of the Council, noting of course that in the 57th Parliament the government members represented a majority of members of the Council. Of these 38 requests for documents that the government of the day was clearly willing to examine and respond to, 18 were responded to with the full release of documents and 12 resulted in partial release. In the case of two requests, the requested documents did not exist. In the case of one request, carried in September 2014, there was not sufficient time for the government to respond, as the Parliament rose shortly afterwards, in October 2014. Of the remaining five requests, executive privilege was claimed in the case of three requests – and I will come back to this matter of executive privilege in a moment – and two other requests were commercially sensitive. In one case, the government’s response was accompanied by evidence of the impact on a private firm. In the other case, commercial negotiations were occurring, and in addition the state’s position with the Commonwealth would have seen the state’s position weakened relative to other states in a competitive Commonwealth assessment process.

In the cases where documents existed, and other than where the government responded in full, the government respectfully requested that the Legislative Council not insist on the provision of the documents. In each of these cases, the Legislative Council in effect accepted the government’s respectful request. If the government were to come forward, for example, with a particular document and say that, for a very good reason, even though this document could be released, it would not be in the state’s interest, the Council I think would respond thoughtfully and respectfully to that. But that is not what we hear – we hear a blanket closure, a blanket block, on these key matters.

Ms Ermacora talked about executive privilege, and we accept that executive privilege is a capacity to deny documents; obviously that is the case. Legal opinions have been obtained by this chamber. The Egan case, which has been referred to by me in the chamber and by others more recently, does lay out a number of the principles that are involved. Executive privilege is a legitimate aspect of claim if the government does not believe a document should be released and it fits the criteria for executive privilege. But executive privilege is also open to excessive and wide use, and if it is not able to be transparently challenged, there is a difficulty for the chamber and the mover of motions – in this case, Mr Limbrick and the committee – to actually assess the validity of the claim of executive privilege. That is why the standing orders have those deadlock mechanisms where executive privilege is claimed. These are explicitly modelled on New South Wales. In New South Wales the arbiter that is in the standing orders operates quite regularly and quite independently and with significant respect from all sides of the chamber. I am very aware of this, because the arbitral provisions were put in at the insistence in fact of the Liberals and the Nationals. That is actually where the driver for the use of documents motions came from in the chamber’s history. However, we can learn from New South Wales. We can learn with these provisions.

Mr Limbrick has moved this motion. There is executive privilege claimed on a long list of documents that we know exist because the government has said they exist, and it has claimed executive privilege on them. The mechanism here would be if the government has a legitimate claim to executive privilege over some of these, it can be tested by an independent arbiter. What would be wrong with that? The independent arbiter would then be in a position to say, ‘We looked at this document, and in fact we don’t believe that that is a reasonable claim.’ The arbiter in New South Wales routinely says, ‘Actually, it’s a legitimate claim.’ Thereby the uncertainty is weeded out of the system, the uncertainty is turned into clarity and the independence of the arbiter is widely respected both by government and by non-government parties in the Legislative Council in the New South Wales Parliament. That is the model that should be considered here, and we should be prepared to look at that closely. We should be able to use what is in the standing orders. I think this is an opportunity for the government to step up, and they will certainly have our support if they do so.

I am not wanting to be combative about this, but the truth of the matter is the approach to the Commonwealth Games committee has been to deny a slew of documents and do that in a pretty unsophisticated way and a way that actually is designed to frustrate and nobble the work of the committee. We hope the government has a change of heart and takes up the opportunity to utilise the procedures that are in the standing orders. I think we will get a better outcome for the chamber, and I think all parties could use that procedure over the long term.

Sarah MANSFIELD (Western Victoria) (10:55): I rise to speak on Mr Limbrick’s motion. We find ourselves for the second time this week discussing the issue of the production of documents or the failure thereof, and this time it is in relation to documents requested by the Commonwealth Games select committee. The experiences of this committee and the frustrations with getting information necessary for this committee to do its work were well aired yesterday and are outlined in detail in the interim report, so I will not go into a lot of that detail again. But suffice to say executive privilege has been claimed over a wide range of documents requested by the committee with little additional context provided, as has been explained by others who have contributed to this debate. The government has relied on a self-determined definition of executive privilege to make these claims and one that has been challenged by legal experts. The avenues available to the committee to challenge this were limited, but they have been outlined in the interim report on the Commonwealth Games cancellation, and one of those avenues is now being used. It is to request the documents via the Parliament, given that the committee’s avenues have largely been exhausted.

Given that executive privilege over these documents has been claimed, presumably an assessment of these documents has been undertaken by the government, which in turn is means the documents exist – they have been located by the government. So we do not expect to get the response that we get with other documents motions that there is insufficient time for the production of these documents or that they cannot be found. But it is entirely possible that the government will continue to claim executive privilege. While on the face of it it seems rather odd that executive privilege was applied to so many documents – one might be forgiven for thinking that this application is perhaps broader that is reasonable even under the government’s own definition – if the government stands by its executive privilege claims, then presumably it will continue to claim it. Moreover, they should have no fear with complying with this house’s standing orders regarding documents over which they make such claims. Under standing orders 10.03 to 10.06:

a return is to be prepared showing the date of creation of the document, a description of the document, the author of the document and reasons for the claim of Executive privilege …

The documents are then required to be delivered to the Clerk and:

made available only to the mover of the motion for the order

…

The mover of the motion for the order may notify the Clerk, in writing, disputing the validity of the claim of Executive privilege in relation to a particular document or documents. On receipt of such notification, the Clerk is authorised to release the disputed document or documents to an independent legal arbiter –

as we have heard happens often in New South Wales –

… for evaluation and report within seven calendar days as to the validity of the claim.

So if the claims of executive privilege are legitimate, then the government should not fear a challenge. Either the mover of the motion will agree with their assessment – they will look at them and go, ‘Actually, that’s fair’ – or they will dispute it and an arbiter will agree with the government. I fully expect that when this documents motion is responded to, executive privilege may be claimed, but I would really hope that the standing orders of this house are followed in terms of the process that is then applied.

Yesterday we heard many government members outlining their commitment to the principles of representative democracy, Westminster principles and their respect for the Parliament. There were also offers to work with the rest of Parliament regarding improving the processes around documents requests. This motion, should it pass, offers the government an opportunity to demonstrate all of this. We will be supporting this motion today, and we look forward to the government’s response.

Michael GALEA (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (11:00): I rise to share just a few remarks today on this motion. It has been a topic that has already been extensively gone into and indeed discussed this week in reference of course to the tabling of the interim report of the inquiry into the 2026 Commonwealth Games bid yesterday, and similar discussions were undertaken in this chamber pertaining to executive privilege. Also in saying so, I would note the comments that you made yourself, Acting President Ermacora, in relation to the types of grounds on which executive privilege is typically claimed. So I do not intend in my contribution today to re-cover that territory, nor necessarily to go through all of what I said yesterday again here today. Suffice to say that I note this motion put forward by Mr Limbrick today as the chair of the committee and note, as I remarked yesterday, he has been a very good, impartial and effective chair of our committee as well. In seeking some documents, as he says, this has been put forward not necessarily by him but by resolutions of that committee. I understand he is right to take this measure today and to seek these documents as part of the continuation of our committee as we continue for one more year.

Some comments made by Mr Davis I will come to in a moment, but I think it is important to note again that, as has been referenced by other speakers, executive privilege has been claimed on these documents, and if there are particular areas such as Dr Mansfield highlights where there can be some further explanation or other detail provided, I am sure, without speaking on their behalf, that such arrangements could be made to happen as is appropriate. As I said, this is certainly not in any way seeking to defy accountability. Indeed as we saw in the hearings for this committee last year with former ministers for Commonwealth Games legacy at the time Minister Leane and Minister Shing coming to appear, they were quite open and forthright with the questions that they were responding to. Despite the very best efforts of those opposite, including Mr Davis, to throw mud, they were not able to successfully achieve that.

I guess that comes to my concern when I hear Mr Davis say that any such documents could come through and be considered thoughtfully and respectfully by the chamber, and that may well be the case for many in this place, but I think Mr Davis’s actions nobble any such presumption towards our capacity to have faith in him behaving in such a way. Notwithstanding that, as I said, there are some important processes by which this can be followed, as I referred to in relation to Dr Mansfield. But to come into this place and say ‘Well, we’ll do this thoughtfully and respectfully’ when your actions for the length of this inquiry and indeed quite beyond that, both in this place and in the committee itself, could not be deemed to be thoughtful and respectful – it is quite a long reach for us to make that assumption. I will leave my remarks there, but as I said, I have discussed much about these issues as they came up in our chamber yesterday. I look forward to hearing other speakers in this debate.

Joe McCRACKEN (Western Victoria) (11:04): In trying to characterise this in a different way, it is sort of like putting together a jigsaw puzzle with different sets of information, but you have got this entity that does not really want you to succeed in putting the puzzle together to get the full picture. I support this motion put forward by Mr Limbrick because it is an attempt, using the mechanisms that we have from the Commonwealth Games select committee, to get some of those pieces of the jigsaw puzzle and ensure that we do actually have a full picture. Some of the outstanding questions as per appendix D of the Commonwealth Games select committee report released yesterday include questions to and outstanding documents from DJSIR, which is the Department of Jobs, Skills, Industry and Regions; the Office of the Commonwealth Games; the Department of Treasury and Finance; and the Department of Premier and Cabinet.

I will just give you a couple of examples of some documents that are outlined in appendix D, because that will give an insight into how they might be able to reveal some of the pieces of the puzzle that we are missing. For example, what is missing from the Office of the Commonwealth Games, or what is being sought, are briefings provided to the Minister for Commonwealth Games Delivery. If those documents and those briefings were able to be accessed, it might help the committee in determining why decisions were made and when they were made, and it would give a bit more context to the outcomes that we have seen.

The Department of Treasury and Finance – documents have been requested from them regarding advice provided into the initial cabinet submission for the approval of the games. There has been a lot of discussion about the initial business case and how effective or otherwise that was, particularly given the short lead-in time and particularly given the less than robust nature of the business case. An insight into that provided by these documents that have been requested would be extremely helpful.

DJSIR advice given to the minister on the business case ahead of the cabinet approval – again, this would be extremely helpful, knowing that the business case, as has been publicly said, was not as robust as it could have been given the short lead-in time, the lack of information that consultants were allowed to engage in and the fact that they could only essentially do desktop reviews. They were not allowed to engage with local governments. To be able to have access to that information would be incredibly helpful.

I understand that this is essentially seeking documents, but the bigger picture of why this motion is needed is essentially trying to piece those pieces of the puzzle together so that we can get to the truth, so that we can get to an accurate picture of what actually happened. This is not revolutionary or anything like that. It is not trying to change the world; it is just asking for documents. I am very happy to support the motion on that basis, and I hope that the rest of the house does consider it very carefully as well, because if there are those who do not want to support this, I guess those members have to think about what it says about how they vote and whether they are really committed to the principles of openness and transparency.

Melina BATH (Eastern Victoria) (11:07): I will make a brief contribution this morning to say that the Nationals certainly support this motion put forward by Mr Limbrick, the chair of the inquiry into the 2026 Commonwealth Games bid. I will not re-cover all of the very worthy commentary that we have heard so far from Dr Mansfield, Mr Limbrick, Mr Davis and Mr McCracken and the comments from the Labor members, but I will say that sitting in these inquiries and listening to testimony, there are the haves and the have-nots.

There are those in the departments – the Department of Jobs, Skills, Industry and Regions, the Department of Premier and Cabinet and the Department of Treasury and Finance – who hold content knowledge. You can tell that they are holding it very close to their chest in a variety of contexts, and the contexts, some of them, are outlined in the interim report’s appendix D on the government’s claim of executive privilege. You can tell that they are sitting there fairly tight-lipped about the situation. Then the have-nots, of course, are the people who did not get to hold the games – the people who were sold the bill that it was coming and who ramped up and started to instigate improvements to their businesses and business plans and councils making plans et cetera. I will not use this time to reprosecute issues that were certainly tabled in the last part of this – hospitality, tourism, the loss of confidence in the regions and the loss of opportunity. Somewhere in the middle there lies the issue of information and transparency. I concur that there is a situation of executive privilege. That is fair and reasonable. Not every word that the government says behind closed doors should be on the table here.

There are many ways, as my colleague Mr McCracken said, to get to the truth that this committee is endorsed to and allowed to investigate, but the government, or the departments, are being as comforting as treacle on a cold day. So I would say that this motion is a reasonable and fair process. I would say that there are those people, those have-nots, who have had that loss and who want some answers. Truly, should this not be about working out what went wrong and what went wrong with the business case, which was as flimsy as a see-through piece of perspex material – it was flimsy – to understand what went wrong so that it does not happen again? At the end of the day those are the important things: to learn, to put it on the record, to give closure to those people who are hurting and to give fair and reasonable democracy in this place.

With that, I certainly understand that there can be a test of those particular items for which they have claimed executive privilege, and I know Mr Davis and Dr Mansfield have spoken about that. Let the government use that where required, but where there are reasonable things that need to come to light in this forum for the community, then let those exist. I support the motion.

David LIMBRICK (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (11:11): I thank everyone for their contribution to this debate today. I will just reiterate what I said earlier. The purpose of this is to resolve the dispute on the contested nature of executive privilege. Parliament has a very neat and efficient procedure for resolving this, and my intention is that we will use that procedure, as outlined in chapter 10 of the standing orders, to resolve that dispute. I do not know yet whether executive privilege is valid or not, but it may well be the case that for everything the government has claimed executive privilege over that is valid. We will be able to make that determination, and I commit to engaging in that process in good faith to the best of my ability.

Motion agreed to.