Lambie, Hanson and Pocock form unlikely alliance to protect transparency campaigner Rex Patrick

Jacqui Lambie, Pauline Hanson and David Pocock have joined a push for the government to stop a legal threat against Rex Patrick, after bureaucrats unexpectedly escalated a transparency case to the federal court. Patrick, a transparency campaigner and former senator , is seeking documents detailing where nuclear waste from the Aukus submarine fleet will be kept within Australia, and won an administrative appeal under freedom of information rules in May. But the acting secretary of the Department of Industry, Science and Resources, Julia Pickworth, has appealed to the federal court, seeking the decision to be overturned and an order for Patrick to pay the federal government’s legal costs in the case if he is unsuccessful. That bill could run to $150,000 or more, which Patrick says represents an attack on the public interest. Patrick wrote to the attorney general, Michelle Rowland, to warn that the department’s approach was a breach of the government’s rules on acting as a model litigant, which require officials to act fairly in legal cases, including in relation to costs. The case has sparked an unlikely alliance across federal parliament, with 18 independent and minor party members signing a letter urging Rowland to intervene in the public interest.