The war veteran sued over several 2018 newspaper stories, claiming they contained false allegations of war crimes, bullying and domestic violence.Even if you didn’t grow up in the United Kingdom, you’ve probably seen a TV show or movie featuring a scene in a British courtroom. She argued IGADF regulation permitted inquiries to be conducted in private, and if FOI requests revealed the identities of participants, sections of it would be undermined.Ī judgment is still yet to be handed down in Mr Roberts-Smith's separate Federal Court defamation case against The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Canberra Times and three journalists - including Masters. Regulation permitted inquiries to be conducted in private: lawyerīarrister Christine Ernst, for the IGADF, said there was no basis to infer the direction was issued in response to the FOI application. Mr Moses said it was in the public interest to know whether there was a meeting between "the head of what was meant to be a secret inquiry" and a journalist, and "potential embarrassment" did not detract from that importance. The Brereton inquiry published a public version of its report in November 2020. He said the journalist published extensively about the inquiry since the meetings, including exclusives claiming to have knowledge of its work. Mr Moses told the hearing it was his case theory that an unnamed person at the meetings - which occurred at an early stage of the Afghanistan inquiry - was Masters. It said disclosure could prejudice an investigation and reveal lines of inquiry or the existence or non-existence of confidential sources of information. The Office of the IGADF initially said there were two documents related to the veteran's request but blocked access. The tribunal heard the diary notes cover two meetings, in early March 2017 and late July 2017.Īccess was refused despite reviews internally through the ADF and via the Office of the Information Commissioner, which affirmed previous decisions.Īrthor Moses SC described the timing of the FOI exemption as "curious". "It's too much of a coincidence to be a coincidence, to adapt the quote of Yogi Berra, the US baseball catcher."
"In the absence of contrary evidence, it is open to infer this direction was issued in response to FOI request. as to why waited until after the filing of the request to issue such a direction to protect his diary notes from disclosure," he said. "There is no explanation that we're aware of.
One week after the FOI application, the then-head of the long-running Afghanistan inquiry by the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force (IGADF), Major General Paul Brereton, made a direction under IGADF regulation that the documents were exempt from the FOI Act.
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