For twelve years, the Andrews and Allan Labor governments made the decisions that wrecked this state, and they made them in the dark. From November 28, One Nation will turn on the lights.
They locked Victorians in their homes for 262 days, longer than any city on earth. They put Melbourne under curfew and told us it was health advice. We now know it wasn’t. Their own public health commander wrote that the curfew “has not arisen from public health advice” and was “a decision taken by Cabinet”. Getting that one email out of them took four and a half years and a fight in the Court of Appeal.
They sealed 3,000 people inside the North Melbourne and Flemington public housing towers at a 4pm press conference, when their own health officials had planned to start the next day. The Ombudsman found the lockdown “appears to have been contrary to law”. Outbreaks from their hotel quarantine program were linked to 768 deaths, and an inquiry that went through more than 70,000 documents could not find one person who would admit to putting private security guards on the doors. They spent $589 million of your money cancelling the Commonwealth Games, on a cost figure the Auditor-General called “overstated and not transparent”, and when the Upper House asked for the documents, they refused to hand them over. Meanwhile, IBAC and the Ombudsman found Labor MPs using taxpayer-funded staff to stack party branches.
All of it is written down. What ministers were advised, what they turned down, what they were told it would cost and who signed off is sitting in Cabinet papers that Victorians paid for and are not allowed to read. Section 28 of the Freedom of Information Act blocks any request for them. Section 10 of the Public Records Act lets them sit in a vault in North Melbourne for up to another 30 years. The Cain Government’s Cabinet papers from 1982 were opened this year, 44 years later. At that rate, Victorians will read the truth about COVID in the 2050s, long after the people responsible have retired onto boards.
Labor has governed Victoria for 23 of the last 27 years, so almost everything locked away is theirs. The current Premier, Ben Carroll, sat at that Cabinet table right through the pandemic. Labor calls this Cabinet confidentiality. In practice it is a cover up protected by an Act of Parliament. This protection has allowed Labor’s corruption and incompetence to fester.
New Zealand has published its Cabinet papers within 30 working days of each decision since 2019. Queensland started in 2024. Canberra and London release theirs after 20 years. Victoria makes people wait half a lifetime. In 2024, Parliament’s own integrity committee told Labor the system was broken, and Labor said it needed “more time”. It has had enough time.
What we will do
- Within the first 100 days of a One Nation government, pass the Open Cabinet Act, repealing the Cabinet exemption in section 28 of the Freedom of Information Act and ending the use of section 10 of the Public Records Act to lock Cabinet records away.
- Release all Victorian Cabinet papers still being held back, from every government of every party, Labor and Liberal, within those same 100 days. Submissions, decision records, agendas and attachments.
- Priority release of all COVID papers. The Crisis Council of Cabinet, hotel quarantine, the curfew, the towers lockdown and every lockdown extension. Followed straight away by the Big Build, the Commonwealth Games, state debt and integrity matters.
- Allow only narrow redactions for genuine national security or law enforcement reasons, the privacy of private citizens, a contract still being negotiated, or live litigation. Every redaction will be published with its reason and an expiry date, decided by the Information Commissioner rather than the department that wrote the document, with a clear right of appeal.
- Make it a criminal offence to make a Cabinet decision without a written record of what was decided and the advice it relied on, and an offence to destroy that record. There will never be another orphan decision like hotel quarantine.
- Write future release into law. Every Cabinet submission, decision and attachment will be published within 30 business days of Cabinet’s final decision. Queensland’s scheme is only a government policy, and is already being hollowed out. Ours will be a statute that no future Premier can switch off without the support of parliament.
- Require any emergency order restricting Victorians’ movement to be published on the same day as the health advice it relies on.
- Require the Government to hand any documents ordered by the Legislative Council to an independent legal arbiter, who decides any claim of privilege. Refusing and walking away will no longer be an option.
- Publish every released paper on a searchable public portal, linked to YourMoney.vic.gov.au, with plain-English summaries of the major decisions so every Victorian can see what was decided and why.
- Hand every paper, in full, to the Royal Commissions into the COVID response and the Big Build.
One Nation will make this happen whatever the election result. The Open Cabinet Act will be the first bill we introduce, on the first sitting day of the new Parliament. If we hold the balance of power, we will use the Legislative Council’s power to order documents on that same day for the COVID, hotel quarantine and Commonwealth Games papers. We will not support any government on any agreement unless the Open Cabinet Act passes.
The Liberals spent four and a half years in court fighting for one set of curfew emails. If they win government, they will hold the keys to the Cabinet room. They will open it, or Victorians will be entitled to ask what the Liberals are hiding too. One Nation will hold their feet to the fire until every page is out.
Victorians did what they were told. They stayed home, lost businesses, missed funerals and kept their children out of school, and then they were told the reasons were none of their business. They are entitled to the truth about what this incompetent and corrupt Labor government did in their name. One Nation will open the books: every paper, every name, every decision.
