The Australian Statistician v Leighton Contractors Pty Ltd

(2008) 36 WAR 83; [2008] WASCA 34

Western Australia Court of Appeal

Built by Barristers,
For Australian Law.

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Interrogate

Catchwords

1. Practice and Procedure
2. › Discovery and production of documents
3. › Public interest immunity
4. › Scope of doctrine
5. › Whether confined to governmental functions
6. › Whether sufficient connection with governmental function where information collected by statutory authority for statistical purposes
7. › Census and Statistics Act 1905 (Cth), ss 12, 13, 19
1. Practice and Procedure
2. › Discovery and production of documents
3. › Public interest immunity
4. › Whether applicability determined by reference to unrestricted or limited disclosure
5. › Whether confidentiality orders relevant at threshold stage or balancing stage
1. Practice and Procedure
2. › Discovery and production of documents
3. › Public interest immunity
4. › Balancing exercise
5. › Whether real risk of significant harm to public interest outweighed relevance of documents to litigation
6. › Weight to be given to evidence of harm from disclosure
1. Evidence
2. › Public interest immunity
3. › Class claims and contents claims
4. › Confidential information provided to government statistical agency
5. › Risk of harm to voluntary cooperation of survey respondents

Quick Take

Public interest immunity is to be assessed on the basis of unrestricted disclosure; the availability of limited disclosure orders is relevant only at the balancing stage. Confidential information collected by the ABS from survey respondents has a sufficient connection with governmental function to attract public interest immunity where disclosure would impair the ABS's ability to collect reliable data. The threshold for invoking the balancing exercise is a real risk of harm, not a probability of harm, and the incurring of the identified risk is itself injurious to the public interest.