Documents from the Department of Premier and Cabinet were accidentally removed from Dumas House in March or April last year by building contractors. Source: The Sunday Times
A DECADE of confidential emails and computer documents from the highest levels of the State Government disappeared for months during a refurbishment blunder.
The Government has confirmed a safe containing back-up tapes of a "full range" of Department of Premier and Cabinet electronic information from 2000-09 was accidentally removed from Dumas House in March or April last year by building contractors, and was then "destroyed in a shredder" at a scrap yard.
A government spokeswoman confirmed the Premier's office didn't wake up to the error until May, potentially months after the safe went missing.
But she said there was "no evidence" the material had been accessed by unauthorised people during the mix-up, which occurred during refurbishment work, but would not guarantee this was the case.
Government insiders said they were shocked the incident occurred "yet no one saw it, and not one of the cameras in Dumas managed to film it".
They were also surprised police were not called to ensure the highly sensitive material had been destroyed.
The DPC spokeswoman said: "As the tapes had been destroyed and there was no suspicion of illegal activity, it was considered there was no need to file a police report on this matter".
But Deputy Opposition Leader Roger Cook said the "major breach of sensitive information" needed "a major public inquiry to ascertain the level of the security breach".
"This potentially could have resulted in high-level issues raised inside the department, sensitive commercial information about big projects, and personal matters that would have been communicated within the department, being leaked," he said.
The DPC spokeswoman said the material was a back-up of the DPC file server, so "anything that was backed up from the server would have been included (and) the records relate to 2000-09".
"It was a locked safe. Also, the tapes would not have been immediately recognisable for what they were ... and would have needed specialist equipment to open them and decipher them," she said.
"The safe was locked and it and all the tapes were in the possession of the contractors when they were taken from Dumas and destroyed in a shredder to 50mm pieces ... and put in landfill.
"The DPC has gone to all reasonable lengths to satisfy themselves that this was the case. There is no evidence at all that any information has been accessed by anyone outside government."
She said the West Perth building, which contained the DPC, some ministers and some departments, had been refurbished from late 2011.
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