Publication would bring Australia into line with similar power-sharing agreements in Britain and New Zealand - arguably the closest Westminster-style parliamentary democracies - where past and present governments led by both progressive and conservative parties have published their contracts for all to see. Labor frontbencher Joel Fitzgibbon has been fighting a sustained battle to get access to the confidential agreement between Mr Turnbull and the leader of the Nationals but so far, public pressure, freedom of information applications, and even action in the courts, have been met with stubborn resistance.

Mr Turnbull has previously stated that the agreement is not a document of the government but rather is a private agreement between the leaders of the two political parties.

That is despite the agreement's stipulations going to the very formation of the government itself and its policy priorities, and despite the fact that government resources have been deployed to fight its publication in proceedings before the Adminsitrative Appeals Tribunal and the Federal Court.

“Surely there is nothing more fundamental to our democracy than the arrangements that allow Malcolm Turnbull to form a government and the community is entitled to know what he has promised he’ll do or not do," Mr Fitzgibbon told Fairfax.

“The prime ministers of New Zealand and the UK have released the documents which deliver them government and Malcolm Turnbull should do the same. If he does not, people are entitled to conclude he has something to hide."