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

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson and senator Jacqui Lambie are among 18 politicians signing a letter urging the attorney general to intervene in the case against Rex Patrick. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP View image in fullscreen One Nation leader Pauline Hanson and senator Jacqui Lambie are among 18 politicians signing a letter urging the attorney general to intervene in the case against Rex Patrick. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP Lambie, Hanson and Pocock form unlikely alliance to protect transparency campaigner Rex Patrick Exclusive : Patrick is using freedom of information rules to seek where nuclear waste from Aukus submarines will be kept Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast 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. Confidential report found former home affairs boss Michael Pezzullo was ‘reckless’ in engagement with Liberal powerbroker Read more 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. Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email Signatories to the parliamentary letter include the teal MPs Allegra Spender and Monique Ryan, the independents Ralph Babet and Lidia Thorpe, and the Greens senator David Shoebridge. “It is clear to us that this is an attack on our freedom of information regime, with the intent of deterring Australians from pursuing access to information,” they said. “Dragging an ordinary citizen, self-represented and under threat of costs, to argue questions of law raised by the government is most unfair.” A group of civil society organisations has also sought Rowland’s intervention in the case, warning the risk of the government appealing information commissioner or Administrative Review Tribunal decisions will stop ordinary citizens from seeking information. “The chilling effect is direct and foreseeable,” warned the group of organisations, inclu