Page 1339 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 27 March 2012
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
In revising our freedom of information scheme, it is worth considering the role of access to information in the context of human rights, and particularly in the context of our Human Rights Act which explicitly protects every Canberran’s right to participate in public life.
As I said earlier, the concept of a right to public information was raised by the ALRC more than 16 years ago, and it was very much emphasised by the Solomon review in 2008. In a submission to that review, the Queensland Council for Civil Liberties said:
The right of an individual to access information created by the Act is the mechanism by which the public interest in the public having access to public information is secured.
I think it is also worth thinking about the role of information access legislation in our democratic system, information that then allows them to make a considered choice about whom they elect to represent them. For the Greens, all these issues illustrate that we need to reassess how the act is structured and the fundamental way that we want to give effect to the rights we are bound to protect and ensure we really do have an open government.
The long and the short of it is that the Greens do not believe we should simply be following the commonwealth model and that we need to do more if we are to live up to our obligation to the citizens that we represent. We recognise that there are perhaps some practical advantages for us in simply adopting the commonwealth scheme. That said, we believe those advantages are outweighed by having a scheme that better achieves the aims that freedom of information laws have always had and better ensures that government information is accessible to the public.
There are two basic principles that underpin a modern scheme. Firstly, it sees information as a public resource and a public right and, secondly, to the greatest extent possible, the provision of access to information should be granted unless there is a demonstrable public interest against doing so for the particular information in question. This is the important point—access should not be restricted solely because of the class of the particular document in question.
In 1978 the High Court in Sankey v Whitlam found that courts were the arbiters of access to government documents in the course of legal proceedings and not the executive. This decision paved the way for independent decision making on these matters and recognised that executive privilege was not absolute. Of course it is an important Westminster doctrine, but in Australia we do not accept that the government should enjoy absolute privileges. More recently in other High Court cases, particularly Egan v Willis, which was the catalyst for the New South Wales independent arbiter provisions that this Assembly has also adopted, this position was reinforced.
The importance of the public interest test and its role as the deciding factor were recognised as far back as 1980 by the High Court in the case of Commonwealth v
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video