Secret documents sold at shop

SECRET government documents containing details of the inner workings of five separate federal governments have been sold at a second-hand shop in Canberra.

Thousands of pages of documents were bought at the shop, which sells ex-government furniture, inside two locked filing cabinets.

The ABC, which has been publishing Cabinet documents this week, revealed yesterday the two filing cabinets were bought for a “small charge” and it was one of the “biggest breaches of Cabinet security in Australian history”.

“Nearly all the files are classified, some as ‘top secret’ or AUSTEO’, which means they are to be seen by Australian eyes only,” the ABC says.

Cabinet papers are usually not publicly released until 20 years after their production.

Speculation in Canberra has been rife about the origin of the documents, which have been reported as “leaks”.

The ABC declined to say who purchased the cabinets but reported “no one broke any laws”.

“They were sold off cheaply because they were heavy and no one could find the keys,” it said.

“A nifty person drilled the locks and uncovered the trove of documents inside.”

Since Monday, the ABC has reported Tony Abbott’s “razor gang” considered cutting welfare to under 30s in its 2014 budget; the details on Mr Morrison’s time as immigration minister; and that Kevin Rudd was warned about “risks” with the home insulation program before the deaths of four workers. The documents did not detail whether those risks were related to safety.

The Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet has launched an urgent inquiry into the sale of the documents.

The Australian Federal Police lost almost 400 national security files in five years, according to a secret government stocktake contained in the files, the ABC reported.