Finding and exposing classified government information is a traditionally dangerous occupation – whistleblowers have risked their livelihoods and liberty to bring government secrets into the light, while news organisations have been threatened and chastised.

But Australian journalists may have found a simpler way – scouring secondhand shops.

In a massive and highly embarrassing breach of national security, hundreds of top secret cabinet documents have been obtained by the Australian broadcaster ABC after being found in two locked filing cabinets in a secondhand furniture store.

The Cabinet Files, as the documents have been aptly named, were found in the two filing cabinets sold at an ex-government sale in Canberra – and were bought for “small change” because the keys to unlock them could not be found.

According to the ABC reporters Ashlynne McGhee and Michael McKinnon the filing cabinets had “sat unopened for some months until the locks were attacked with a drill”.

The documents, which show the inner workings of five separate governments, should have remained sealed for 20 years.



While Australians have been amused by the manner in which the documents came to light, government officials are furious at the leak. On Wednesday, the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (PMC) announced an urgent investigation. Almost all of the files are classified, some as “top secret” or “AUSTEO”, which means they are to be seen by Australian eyes only.

Terry Moran, who was PMC secretary from 2008 to 2011, told ABC’s 7.30 the discovery was a “great surprise” and whoever was responsible for disposing of the cabinets “must be found and sacked”.

Moran said Australia’s system of government relied on ministers “being able to have very frank conversations” and public “insights into that free speech … would inhibit the sort of discussion that good decision-making … requires”.

The revelations include allegations that the Australian federal police lost nearly 400 national security files between 2008 and 2013. The documents lost by the AFP were from the cabinet’s national security committee, which controls Australia’s security, intelligence and defence agenda as well as deploying the military.

The documents also reveal that the former prime minister Tony Abbott’s government had considered denying welfare to people under 30. The options included cutting off under-30s from income support entirely, cutting off under-30s in areas with employment opportunities and limiting income support to young people with a work history.

A report in the Cabinet Files also says the former prime ministers Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard and two senior Labor ministers were warned about “critical risks” of a home insulation scheme before the deaths of four young installers.

Rudd told the ABC any assertion he was warned about safety risks was untrue.

“The royal commission into the home insulation program had unprecedented access to cabinet material and made no adverse finding against Mr Rudd,” he said in a statement.

The files also revealed that the former prime minister John Howard’s administration had debated removing the right of people to remain silent under police questioning, after the wrongful arrest of the Indian doctor Mohammed Haneef on terrorism charges.