Commonwealth Consolidated Acts Commonwealth Consolidated Acts(1) Subject to this section, where the Committee directs that the inquiry by the Committee into a public work shall take place in public, any evidence taken by the Committee for the purpose of the inquiry shall be taken in public.
(2) Where, in the opinion of the Committee, any evidence proposed to be given before, or the whole or a part of a document produced or proposed to be produced in evidence to, the Committee relates to a secret or confidential matter, the Committee may, and at the request of the witness giving the evidence or producing the document shall:
(a) take the evidence in private; or
(b) direct that the document, or the part of the document, be treated as confidential.
(3) Where a direction under the last preceding subsection is applicable in respect of a document, or a part of a document, produced in evidence to the Committee, the contents of that document or part shall, for the purposes of this section and of section 37, be deemed to be evidence given by the person producing the document and taken by the Committee in private.
(4) Where, at the request of a witness, evidence is taken by the Committee in private:
(a) the Committee shall not, without the consent in writing of the witness; and
(b) a person (including a member) shall not, without the consent in writing of the witness and the authority of the Committee under subsection ( 6);
disclose or publish the whole or a part of that evidence.
(5) Where evidence is taken by the Committee in private otherwise than at the request of a witness, a person (including a member) shall not, without the authority of the Committee under the next succeeding subsection, disclose or publish the whole or a part of that evidence.
(6) The Committee may, in its discretion, disclose or publish or, by writing under the hand of the Chair , authorize the disclosure or publication of, evidence taken in private before the Committee, but this subsection does not operate so as to affect the necessity for the consent of a witness under subsection ( 4).
(7) Nothing in this section prohibits:
(a) the disclosure of evidence by a Sectional Committee to the Committee;
(b) the disclosure or publication of evidence that has already been lawfully published; or
(c) the disclosure or publication by a person of a matter of which he or she has become aware otherwise than by reason, directly or indirectly, of the giving of evidence before the Committee.
Penalty: Imprisonment for 12 months or 4 penalty units .