1.5 Definition of Cabinet documents
Cabinet documents are documents, which if disclosed, would reveal any consideration or deliberation of Cabinet, or otherwise prejudice the confidentiality of Cabinet considerations, deliberations or operations.
Documents which are comprised exclusively of Cabinet information under the terms of the Right to Information Act 2009 are:
- Cabinet submissions
- Cabinet briefing notes
- Cabinet agendas
- notes of discussions in Cabinet
- Cabinet minutes
- Cabinet decisions, and
- drafts of any of the above documents.
Examples of other Cabinet documents in addition to those listed in the Right to Information Act 2009 include:
- reports and attachments that have been brought into existence for the purpose of consideration by Cabinet
- reports or studies within or for the Queensland Government that are intended to form the basis of a Cabinet document or an attachment to a Cabinet document
- legislative proposals, Bills, explanatory notes and Explanatory speeches
- material brought to Cabinet to supplement Cabinet submissions, including audio-visual presentations, slides, charts, overheads and explanatory texts
- corrigenda to Cabinet submissions
- briefing papers prepared for Ministers or Chief Executive Officers in relation to matters submitted or proposed to be submitted to Cabinet
- reports generated by the Cabinet Secretariat or agencies which show Cabinet submissions or proposed Cabinet submissions
- correspondence between Ministers and/or the Premier that proposes matters to be raised in Cabinet
- consultation comments on advance and final Cabinet submissions
- all other minutes, correspondence between Ministers and other material that relate to Cabinet matters, e.g. letters seeking waiver of all or part of the Cabinet process or minutes seeking comments on submissions
- all formats of the above, including hard copy, electronic, or microfilm formats.
These examples are not intended to limit the documents which are considered to be Cabinet documents. Any document which would reveal any consideration or deliberation of Cabinet, or otherwise prejudice the confidentiality of Cabinet considerations, deliberations or operations is a Cabinet document.
If there is any doubt about whether a document is a Cabinet document, advice should be sought from the Cabinet Secretary.
