Follow up to AET085

Question

Senator McDONALD: Mr Kelly, we put a question to you on notice, AET085, asking whether the Treasurer or his office ever asked you not to provide advice via email or PDMS. Senator BRAGG: What's PDMS? Senator McDONALD: It must be something very modern. Senator BRAGG: Is it on a Blackberry? Senator McDONALD: It might be on a Blackberry. Mr J Kelly: I don't have that particular- Senator McDONALD: No; that's because you haven't answered it. I'm sorry. I was getting to that. Mr J Kelly: I tried to bring the ones- Senator McDONALD: I thought I would give you an opportunity in case you had it there. It's obviously an inappropriate request to ask the department not to communicate advice via email or PDMS, which I assume is some internal government communication system. I thought this would have been a very easy question to have been answered. Why wasn't it answered? Mr J Kelly: Sorry, I would need to check. I do usually bring the ones that have not been answered and that's not in my pack today. I thought it had been answered. All Treasury advice, when we write briefs to ministers, goes through PDMS. Where the advice is provided by email, that is also included in PDMS, whether separately or attached to previous advice. From my observation, that's almost universally followed. I'm not aware of exceptions to that. My memory of that question, the way it was asked, is that it raises issues where sometimes the minister will want-and this is true not only of ministers of this government but all previous governments I've been familiar with-officials to come up and talk to them about an issue and have that discussion with them. In the course of doing that, that can involve in effect advice. Do we always put that through? Is that always going to be then captured in PDMS? No. Senator McDONALD: It was our view that it was quite a simple question to answer and, if that was the clarification, that would have been quite directly provided. The question was: has the Treasurer or his office ever asked you not to provide a briefing via email or a briefing or advice via email or PDMS? Mr J Kelly: I can't recollect one in that negative sense that the question is being asked. If it's in the sense of we've been asked for advice and if it happens in the course of a meeting, that's something that's not contemplated by that question. Senator McDONALD: If you thought the question had been answered and you don't have it, that possibly means it's the minister's office- Mr J Kelly: I would just need to go back and see what happened. Senator Gallagher: I'm trying to check. I'm trying to see where it's at.

Answer

See attached response.

Documents

• Question with answer (PDF) (opens in a new tab)
• SQ26-000440 Follow up to AET085.pdf (opens in a new tab)