Commonwealth Consolidated Acts Commonwealth Consolidated Acts(1AA) This section does not apply to a proceeding in the Security Division to which section 39A or 39BA applies.
Intervention by State Attorney - General
(1) Where, at the hearing of a proceeding before the Tribunal, a person is asked a question in the course of giving evidence, the Attorney - General of a State may inform the Tribunal that, in his or her opinion, the answering of the question would be contrary to the public interest for a specified reason or reasons, being a reason or reasons mentioned in subsection 36B(1).
When person excused from answering question
(2) Where the Attorney - General of a State informs the Tribunal that, in his or her opinion, the answering by a person of a question would be contrary to the public interest, that person is excused from answering the question unless:
(a) if the reason specified is, or the reasons specified include, a reason referred to in paragraph 36B(1)(a)--a court, on an appeal under section 44 or a reference under section 45, decides that the answering of the question would not be contrary to the public interest; or
(b) otherwise--the Tribunal decides that the answering of the question would not be contrary to the public interest.
State Attorney - General taken to be a party
(3) Where the Attorney - General of a State informs the Tribunal
that, in his or her opinion, the answering by a person of a question at the
hearing of a proceeding would be contrary to the public interest and, but for
this subsection, that Attorney - General would not be a party to the
proceeding, that Attorney - General shall, for the purposes of this Act, be
taken to be a party to the proceeding.