Victorian Consolidated Legislation

Audit Act 1994 - SECT 12

Access to information

12. Access to information



(1) No obligation to maintain secrecy or other restriction on the disclosure
of information obtained by or furnished to persons employed in the public
service or by an authority, where imposed by an enactment or rule of law or
Cabinet confidentiality, applies to the disclosure of information required by
the Auditor-General, a person authorised by the Auditor-General under section
11 or a person assisting the Auditor-General for the purposes of anything done
under this Act.

(2) The Auditor-General or any other person must not divulge or communicate,
except in the course of duty to another person performing duties under this
Act, any information which has come to his or her knowledge by reason directly
or indirectly of subsection (1) if the person from whom that information was
obtained could not, but for that subsection, lawfully have divulged that
information to the Auditor-General or other person.

(3) Despite subsection (2) or any other law to the contrary, the
Auditor-General may include in a report any information which has come to his
or her knowledge in the course of performing functions under this or any other
Act if the Auditor-General considers that-

   (a)  the information is relevant to the subject matter of the report; and

   (b)  the inclusion of the information in the report is in the public
        interest.