Further to my complaint under the Ombudsman Act 1978 of 23 March 2026, on 12 June 2026 I submitted a supplementary complaint.
The supplementary complaint focused on the Government’s handling of the University of Tasmania (Protection of Land) Bill 2024/25, but a number of issues raised have more general relevance for the Tasmanian Parliament and good government, for example:
- The current situation whereby briefing sessions on legislation are not conducted under oath and are not recorded (either in Hansard or electronically) creates a low-accountability environment in which truth can be treated as optional. This should be unacceptable.
- The poor quality of fact sheets and clause notes – a review of other bills indicates that this issue extends well beyond the University of Tasmania (Protection of Land) Bill 2024/25.
- The willingness of Government to mislead and/or to accept poor quality briefing from officials (and other self-serving parties) – this makes it essential that the Legislative Council functions as a true house of review with all Opposition, Greens and independent members thoroughly questioning the claims of Government.
This is the full text of my supplementary complaint.
Note: The date in the heading on the top of page 11 should read 25 March 2026, not 23 March 2026. Attachments referred to in this document are provided in the Appendix.
In an Addendum, I provided the following letter to the Ombudsman’s Office on 22 June 2026:
This letter was drawn to my attention after 12 June 2026 and significantly strengthened my case. As I stated to the Ombudsman’s Office in the Addendum:
“I believe a similar letter was sent to all members of the Legislative Council, including Minister Palmer, in January 2026. This strengthens the points I made in the section of my submission entitled 3(b)(ii)(3) False description of the Hobart City Council’s position on rezoning, and Minister Palmer can only be judged to have acted deceptively or with a reckless disregard for truth and accuracy. If she was not mindful of the contents of the letter, Minister Palmer should have acted to ensure that she was fully briefed before repeatedly and totally misrepresenting the position of the HCC at every level.”
Appendix – Attachments to my supplementary submission
Attachment A – this is my submission of 23 March 2026.
Attachments B and C are communications by managerial and technical staff of the Hobart City Council. Together with Lord Mayor Anna Reynolds’ letter above, they make it clear that Minister Palmer misrepresented the position of the Hobart City Council, at every level of the organisation, in respect of using legislation for rezoning.
The ‘Attachment 1‘ referred to was an attachment to my submission of 23 March 2026. The attachment highlighted major gaps in RTI documents received from UTAS, DPAC and Minister Ogilvie. After the 56 hectares issue was exposed by Meg Webb MLC on 12 April 2026, I reviewed the RTI documents I had received, and there was also a total gap in documentation on this matter.
Attachment 1 is described on its first page:
