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The Australian government is investigating the discovery of thousands of files, dating back 10 years and spanning five governments, in filing drawers at a furniture store in the Australian capital of Canberra.
The documents were obtained by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), which has called the discovery "one of the biggest breaches of Cabinet security in Australian history."
The existence of the documents and their unlikely discovery was revealed by ABC Wednesday in a series of shock articles.
Former Prime Minister John Howard's government was also alleged to have discussed removing Australians' right to remain silent in custody around 2007, according to ABC reporting.
The Cabinet is the top decision making body in a parliamentary system, composed of the prime minister and his or her most senior ministers.
All discussions inside Cabinet are considered confidential and documents on Australian Cabinet decisions are supposed to remain confidential for at least to 20 years.
A number of other prominent Australian leaders were also the target of embarrassing domestic allegations, including former Prime Ministers Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott.
"If you are going to throw out a filing cabinet that has got a whole lot of sensitive and confidential information in it you have got to make sure it is empty before it goes out of the building," he said Wednesday.
According to the ABC, the two sets of drawers were sold at a second-hand furniture store in an undisclosed neighborhood in Canberra. They were both locked and no set of keys was provided with them.
They were eventually bought and left unopened until the purchaser used a drill to break off the locks. The ABC did not identify who bought the drawers and how the documents found their way to the news organization.
"I mean all these spies who are meant to be spying on us they should just be going shopping in second-hand furniture stores in Canberra," he said.