Page 388 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 13 May 1992
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FREEDOM OF INFORMATION (AMENDMENT) BILL 1992
Debate resumed from 8 April 1992, on motion by Mr Humphries:
That this Bill be agreed to in principle.
MR CONNOLLY (Attorney-General, Minister for Housing and Community Services and Minister for Urban Services) (11.48): Madam Speaker, the Government will not be supporting these amendments to the freedom of information legislation that have been proposed by Mr Humphries. I was interested to see that the early indication of these amendments before they reached the light of day in the Assembly was in a 2CN news report on 14 March. The newsreader indicated that the Opposition planned these legislative amendments, and Mr Humphries said that there were unnecessary delays for people seeking information under FOI. The newsreader said, "Mr Humphries says he was prompted to change the laws after his experiences last year".
Mr Humphries seems to have had on this issue one of the greatest changes on the road to Damascus since the original, because Mr Humphries, of course, was the Minister who was the person being litigated against by the Weetangera Action Group. Many of us in this Assembly would have recalled the Weetangera Action Group, a very dedicated group of residents who were seeking to get access to some of the material that was floating around during the school closure debate. A very rigorous line was held against the Weetangera Action Group. There were many points taken on fees and time and all the rest of it, and a very vigorous defence of not producing documents that had been to the joint party room and to the Alliance Cabinet. Unfortunately, because the Government changed, we were not in a position to reverse that decision. They were previous Cabinet documents; so we could not have just said, "Go for your life; have it".
One of the first decisions of the ACT AAT on the ACT FOI Act is that in the case of the Weetangera Action Group against the Department of Education and the Arts, and it is a sorry tale of the Alliance's determination not to lay the cards on the table in relation to the school debate. So, as for the assertion by the newsreader indicating that Mr Humphries had learned from his experiences last year, I wonder whether they were the particular experiences.
When we read the introduction speech we note that Mr Humphries does make the point that oppositions tend to be more robust on FOI than governments, and I guess that that is generally a truism. But it is odd that the Liberal Party is taking this particular point. In essence, what Mr Humphries is saying is that the current law is defective when a person makes an application and at the same time says, "I want the fee limited". Members would be aware that in the ACT, as in the Commonwealth, there is a user pays regime, essentially - a matter which ACIL seemed to be terribly enthusiastic about for all sorts of reasons and which is usually dear to the hearts of the Liberal Party. Under that user pays regime the person who wants information is, prima facie, expected to meet a charge.
At the moment a person may make an application and make an application for the fees to be remitted, but the application is not dealt with until the remittal matter is determined; that is, if the decision maker says, "Yes, you can have a remission", the process is dealt with and the documents will be obtained. If the remission is rejected, the matter is not properly dealt with.
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