Page 346 - Week 02 - Thursday, 8 March 2007
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I think the latter is particularly important because I do not think anyone would want any compromise on important issues such as national security, defence of the commonwealth, any state or territory, or international relations of the commonwealth. Referring to personal information, I think that is something we need to monitor. I note that the bill is based on a federal act and I note also that the federal government is having a look at things such as privacy laws. Privacy laws are a double-edged sword so I would be interested to see how this issue pans out.
I think people are starting to realise that privacy laws can be taken too far in the reasonable provision of information to people. We are content to see how that goes but, as I indicated earlier, the other aspects of the bill are fine. Clause 7, which my party opposes, substitutes a new section 23 (1) for the existing section. I am worried about that clause which will enable an agency or a minister to consider refusing an FOI request if it involves an unreasonable diversion of resources. It also provides some guidelines on the matters that must be considered and that must not be considered when making such a decision.
I think this is just another example of the Stanhope Labor government’s wrong priorities. It is another example of the Stanhope Labor government just putting things into the too hard basket. The government’s budget last year—a budget we had to have because of the Stanhope Labor government’s squandering of the territory’s finances—must be biting. It seems that the public service does not have the resources to attend to those freedom of information requests that might, in someone’s estimation, be a bit too much trouble. In the case of ministers, is it perhaps that they are just too busy to concern themselves with matters as trivial as FOI requests, or is it just—and pardon my cynicism—that ministers have too much to hide and simply want a way out?
The guidelines that must be considered by an agency or a minister in making a decision about whether an FOI request will unreasonably divert resources are not real guidelines, and they are so open-ended as to provide no guidance at all. If guidelines are to be of any use at all they must be measurable. These guidelines are not measurable. When does an FOI request become too onerous or too unreasonable for the agency or minister? What does unreasonable mean? This is not covered in clause 7. Is it when it requires one person more than a week to process a request, or is it when 10 people are required for more than a month? Is it when there are 100 documents to be copied or 10,000 documents to be copied? Is it when the schedule of documents is one page or 100 pages? Who knows? There are no clear guidelines.
It should not surprise the government to know that even the council for civil liberties agrees with the Liberal Party’s take on clause 7. Recently I saw council representatives who indicated to me that they considered it an erosion of the rights of ordinary citizens. They put out a media release in relation to this issue, with which I agree. Through clause 7 the government is seeking to erode the rights of ordinary citizens. That is something that is open to abuse because of these Clayton’s guidelines.
We have here a very secretive government, a government that supposedly prides itself on human rights, but when it comes to looking at real rights it is one of the most secretive governments I think we have seen since self-government in this territory. It is a government that has gone to great lengths to ensure that my colleague Mrs Dunne
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