Overloaded and leaky are the words that probably best sum up the functioning of the Fraser cabinet in the late 1970s.
Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser saw cabinet as the central engine room of government and a remarkable number of issues, large and small, were dealt with in cabinet.
In 1978 the Fraser cabinet received 1014 submissions with only eight submissions still under consideration as the year ended. In addition, 33 submissions were withdrawn completely, and 16 were withdrawn and replaced by another submission or cabinet paper. It considered a further 612 other cabinet papers.
That year, no fewer than 2888 cabinet decisions were formally recorded, taken by the cabinet or11 cabinet committees; an average of more than 55 decisions a week. Some individual cabinet meetings produced between 50 and 60 decisions.
Nearly 47 per cent of cabinet decisions in 1978, some 1347, were made without submission; another indicator of the volume and pace of cabinet business.
In comparison, in 2006-07, the final full year of the Howard government, cabinet dealt with 739 documents including submissions, memorandums and so-called ''under-the-line'' items, and 835 cabinet decisions were recorded. In 2007-08, a period covering the final months of the Howard government and the first seven months of the Rudd Government, 571 cabinet items were considered and 811 decisions recorded.
Speaking at the National Archives briefing on the release of the 1978 cabinet papers, former Fraser government minister Fred Chaney acknowledged the Fraser cabinet was sometimes overburdened with the Prime Minister allowing relatively minor matters to be referred to cabinet, but he emphasised Mr Fraser's preparedness to allow ministers to speak freely and his encouragement of wide-ranging debate and discussion.
Also in contrast to the tight security surrounding cabinet deliberations over the past decade, cabinet leaks were commonplace in 1978. Mr Fraser spoke of the importance of cabinet confidentiality at the first meeting of the full ministry in February 1978. Despite this, a series of damaging disclosures, from ministers and officials, embarrassed the Government during the year.
Cabinet ''expressed concern at the number of Departmental officials stated to have had access to the Uranium Bills which have been the subject of press reports arising from unauthorised disclosures of information'' in April 1978.
Efforts to restrict the distribution of cabinet papers had little effect and cabinet later expressed concern at ''an increase in the number of unauthorised disclosures of information in recent weeks, particularly relating to cabinet business''.
Ministers were directed to instruct their departmental heads ''to keep a close scrutiny on security of documents and particularly ensure that access to cabinet documents is on a strictly need to know basis''.
But leaks continued with cabinet noting in November 1978, ''the leader of the opposition in the Senate appeared to have obtained access to a cabinet submission, later withdrawn, concerning the question of family income testing of unemployment and sickness benefits for persons under 21, and to information relating to its handling''. The Government's embarrassment was such the submission was withdrawn from consideration. Philip Dorling