Barristers of the utmost fame are beetling back from Whale Beach to pore over constitutional texts and judicial reasoning. The power of the NSW Legislative Council to cause a bit of merry hell for the legless Keneally regime is in contention.

Many people may be surprised that the Legislative Council, with its agglomeration of mainline party hacks and its leisurely sitting arrangements, actually functions in a spirited fashion at all.

But thank god it's still there in a form that is independent of this government - despite heroic efforts of the former Labor premiers Jack Lang and Bob Heffron to abolish the upper house.

What the Premier is clinging to, like a log in the ocean, is advice from the Crown Solicitor, Ian Knight, penned in 1994. Knight, who is a servant of the government, considered that standing committees could not function while Parliament was prorogued, unless some act of parliament specially said so. The committee is a creature of the house of parliament that created it, and if Parliament is out of action, so too are its offspring.

One lawyer with a different view is the Greens MLC David Shoebridge. He says the 1994 advice relied on by the Premier has been overtaken. In 2004 new standing orders came into force, specially this one: ''The [upper] house may establish standing committees which have the power to sit during the life of the parliament.''

When you think about it, a formal inquiry is rather a quaint notion in the era of WikiLeaks. It might confidently be expected that all the anticipated unsavoury details surrounding the politics of electricity could emerge by extra-parliamentary means.

Still, it's nice to have Fred Nile in your corner, for a change.

Kristina Kenneally In Trouble Over Power Sell Off Inquiry

Kristina Keneally is being accused of possible contempt of Parliament as the opposition escalates its attack on the government over an inquiry into the controversial $5.3 billion power sale.

Patrick Keyzer, a professor of constitutional law at Bond University, in a joint legal opinion with a Sydney barrister, Arthur Moses, SC, says the Premier's comments that the inquiry is illegal ''had an inherent tendency to interfere with the due administration of the inquiry''.

The opinion, commissioned by the Opposition Leader, Barry O'Farrell, argues that while the Premier has a right to free speech, she ''cannot say whatever she likes about the inquiry and the people who may choose or be invited to participate in it''.

They say it is up to the Parliament to investigate Ms Keneally's comments and decide what action, if any, to take.

Mr Moses successfully prosecuted the former chief minister of the Northern Territory, Denis Burke, for contempt in 2001.

Kristina Keneally targeted for power contempt

meanwhile .....

The state government is refusing to release cabinet documents despite passing a 10-year publication embargo because they reveal personal opinions of ministers at the time.

The refusal raises questions about the Keneally government's commitment to its new freedom-of-information regime and the promise to make publicly available large amounts of previously secret information.

Under the Government Information (Public Access) Act, cabinet documents cease to be exempt from public requests for access if 10 years have passed since the calendar year in which the papers were written.

In May the Premier, Kristina Keneally, directed all ministers and heads of department to ''comply with both the letter and the spirit'' of the new legislation, which replaced the complex and widely criticised Freedom of Information Act.

However, the Department of Premier and Cabinet has refused for almost 12 months to grant the Herald access to documents produced in 1999 by the cabinet relating to the Olympics.

The department's general counsel, Paul Miller, said he had determined that there is ''an overriding public interest against disclosure'' because the documents reveal the ''views and positions of individual ministers in cabinet''.

Refusal to release cabinet files casts NSW as 'state of secrecy'