Attorney general will go to the federal court after tribunal ruled he was obliged to process the freedom of information request from Labor’s Mark Dreyfus

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Attorney general George Brandis is launching a federal court challenge to a freedom of information ruling that his office needed to process a request for his ministerial diary.

Freedom of information: George Brandis’s diary has its day in court Read more

The move, likely to cost thousands of dollars in legal fees, followed a request from shadow attorney general Mark Dreyfus for the diary entries.

The list Dreyfus requested was simply an itemised extract of the meetings Brandis had taken, and contained little to no detail about the substance of those meetings.

Dreyfus said it was extraordinary Brandis would go to “such great lengths to avoid dealing with such a simple FOI request”.

The attorney general’s office initially ruled that processing the request would substantially interfere with the minister’s functions.

Brandis’s office argued it would be necessary to consult many of the individuals named in his diary entries, which would be too difficult to require them to process the request.

The administrative appeals tribunal rejected this reasoning and said Brandis’s office was obliged to continue processing the request. He is now challenging that decision.

The ruling by Justice Jayne Jagot did not mean Brandis was required to release the extracts, just that his office must continue to process the request.

In her reasoning Jagot was critical of Paul O’Sullivan, Brandis’ chief of staff, and his assessment of the potential security ramifications of the decision. O’Sullivan is a former director-general of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (Asio).

She wrote that while his experience meant his “concern thus warrants careful consideration” she did not think that O’Sullivan’s concerns were based on the actual contents of the diary.

She said: “I am unable to accept that the mere fact that the attorney general had a meeting with Asio or attended a meeting of the national security council/committee more than 18 months ago could cause damage or divulge information if the required kind of a diary entry says nothing more than ‘meeting with Asio’ or ‘meeting of national security council/committee’”.

Dreyfus said it was a “total waste of money”, given that others minister such as Julie Bishop has released similar extracts.

“Senator Brandis is meant to protect the integrity of the FOI system and yet has shown nothing but disdain for it in this case,” he said.

“His arguments were rejected once and I’m confident they will be rejected again by the court.”

A spokeswoman for the attorney-general said the decision had been made “in the public interest” because there was “wide ranging implications for the FOI system” as a result of the tribunal decision.