The Guardian’s Paul Farrell has written a stinging attack of the Government’s proposed reforms of the Freedom of Information (FOI) laws, which could radically restrict the public’s access to government information and stifle transparency of government:
Our right to know is under attack. A new and deliberate assault is now being launched on one of the pillars of access to federal government information: the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act. We risk losing one of our most valuable tools to help open governments…
Requests are increasingly denied on spurious grounds and excessive costs are used to deter requests…
The federal government will soon dismantle the FOI regime further. Sometime this year it will attempt to radically change the law.
The details are still unclear, but this is what we know so far. The Office of the Australian Commissioner (OAIC), designed to be a champion of open government, will be abolished. Complaints will be heard by the commonwealth ombudsman, although there will be given no additional resources to deal with them.
Reviews of FOI decisions will go the administrative appeals tribunal, which will likely cost more than $800. It is anticipated the government may also seek to reintroduce some kind of application fee to the FOI process.
None of this bodes well for access to government information.
Further restricting the FOI regime is obviously a retrograde step, which will further undermine the public’s trust in government and the efficacy of policy making.
It is also concerning given the current system is hardly a beacon of ‘transparency’, with many reasonable requests either denied outright or heavily redacted.
A classic example of the system’s shortcomings was provided by Fairfax’s Chris Vedelago, who while trying to ascertain information on the level of foreign purchases of Australian real estate, was led down a farcical path by the Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB). Three FOI requests later and the best Vedelago could come up with is a stack of blanked-out and redacted pages from FIRB.
As noted by Vedelago, it should really be know as the “Freedom From Information Act”, and the Coalition’s reforms are only likely to make transparency even worse.
