Secret Future Submarine information accidentally emailed to SA Senator Rex Patrick

An SA senator has been emailed full details of Australia’s $50 billion Future Submarine deal by mistake.

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A full copy of the contract for Australia’s $50 billion submarine project has been mistakenly emailed to a Centre Alliance MP after a Defence Department bungle.

Centre Alliance senator Rex Patrick used Freedom Of Information laws to request a copy of the contract with submarine designers Naval Group.

He was originally sent a heavily redacted version, but was later emailed an unredacted copy in error.

Senator Patrick said he had now seen secret sections of the document, but would not reveal the contents.

Centre Alliance Senator Rex Patrick was emailed a full copy.

Sections had been blanked out for national security or commercial-in-confidence reasons.

The Defence Department realised its error and asked for the unredacted section to be deleted, which it was.

But it was then easily retrieved from the “deleted” folder.

The Advertiser has not seen the unredacted documents.

A Defence spokesman said the department processed more than 1000 FOI requests a year.

“Defence has a very good record of compliance with FOI legislation,” the spokesman said.

“Defence can confirm it has made an error when processing a request for information. Defence regrets its error.

As appropriate, a review into process controls is underway.”

Having seen both versions of the document, Senator Patrick described the incident as a “tragic case of accidental transparency”.

He said the documents he has show the department “is purporting to provide a measure of openness, but in fact it is obstructing and concealing”.

“The documents I am in possession of show that the Department is not approaching its FOI obligations properly … appreciating that the public have a positive right to access, unless there are good reasons for something to be withheld,” he said.

“Indeed, on the basis of the redacted documents I have before me, I would say that the whole FOI process in Defence is being run as an absolute sham.”

Senator Patrick will appeal the FOI decision, saying seeing both versions shows the Department’s “unlawful approach”.