Department of Education: Startup Year Program

The majority voted against a motion:

That the Senate—

(a) notes that order for production of documents no. 186 relating to consultation on the Startup Year program was agreed by the Senate on 21 March 2023;

(b) further notes that the order has only partially been complied with, as the Minister representing the Minister for Education has not tabled:

(i) some submissions, on the basis that the authors have not agreed to publication, and

(ii) all data collected in the student survey; and

(c) also notes that the Minister for Education, in his response of 23 March 2023, has made a claim of public interest immunity (PII) with respect to submissions where the author has not agreed to publication, claiming 'it is not in the public interest to depart from the established practice of allowing stakeholders to make submissions in a consultation process that are not shared beyond the Government of the day', and 'to break this convention would undermine future consultation processes and is not in the public interest';

(d) rejects the PII claim, noting that claims that information has been collected on the condition that it may be treated as confidential at the discretion of the author, and therefore cannot be disclosed, is not in itself a ground for a PII claim and that it must be established that:

(i) some specific harm may occur because of the disclosure of the information sought by the order, and

(ii) any such specific harm could not be overcome by disclosing information in more general terms such as not disclosing the identity of the author; and

(e) orders that the Minister representing the Minister for Education fully comply with the order by no later than midday on Thursday, 30 March 2023, with the exception that all data collected as part of the student survey be deidentified.

Read more about these types of motions on the parliamentary website.