Page 1548 - Week 04 - Thursday, 7 April 2011
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with before they can obtain access to information that is often important to the operation and the administration of the ACT.
I flagged with members of the committee that I would make these comments in this place, because it is, I suppose, by way of a dissenting comment. I did propose a recommendation that members of the Legislative Assembly be exempt from charges under the Freedom of Information Act, and members of the committee did not agree with that. I contemplated making dissenting comments, but they were essentially the only dissenting comments that I would have made; so I flagged with the committee that I would raise that issue here so that the fullness of the issues that were discussed in the committee can be exposed in this place. I recognise that I was the only member of the committee who held that view. But I do hold that view and I suspect it is the view of many members of the Legislative Assembly who are being confronted with charging on a regular basis.
One of the other important issues is that the committee has recommended that the ACT create an office integrating the functions of the Ombudsman, the Privacy Commissioner and the freedom of information commissioner, thus replacing the services provided by the commonwealth and creating a new leadership role for freedom of information in the ACT. It is sort of a natural continuation of the process that we have evolved. We are seeing that, in many aspects of things that happen in the ACT, we are moving away from reliance upon services provided on a fee-for-service basis by the commonwealth. For instance, only this week the Assembly passed into law the Evidence Bill which, when it becomes operative, will mean that the ACT has its own Evidence Act. Hitherto, we have relied on the commonwealth Evidence Act.
Here too, we recommend that we have a standalone office. This is not inconsistent with the recommendations of the Hawke review. The committee recognises that there would be a cost associated with this. The committee also noted that the attorney seemed to be pretty much opposed to this on a cost basis. The minister’s presentation before the committee was a little woeful, because he basically said, “You cannot do anything because it will cost”—that was it essentially—“and if you propose anything, you have to remember that it will cost and we probably will not do anything about it”.
So the challenge is now open to the government to take on board the clear views of the committee, which I think reflect the majority of views in the ACT Legislative Assembly, that there needs to be root and branch reform of the Freedom of Information Act.
MS HUNTER (Ginninderra—Parliamentary Convenor, ACT Greens) (12.07): I will just make some very brief comments about the report. Firstly, I thank the committee secretariat, and particularly the committee secretary, for all their hard work. As you are probably all aware, the last two or three years have been particularly significant for the development of FOI laws in Australia. I would like to do this to some musical accompaniment, thank you, Ms Le Couteur.
Ms Le Couteur: I am sorry.
MR ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Mr Hargreaves): Order, Ms Hunter! Stop the clock, please. Would somebody please tell the “band” to leave? It is disorderly. Ms Hunter, the floor is yours.
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