Page 1342 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 27 March 2012
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These issues are very important to the Greens and that is why we included them in the parliamentary agreement. Whilst there certainly remains much to be done in this area, it is something that we are pleased that we have been able to make progress on during this Assembly.
The other point that should be addressed and is often spoken about when it comes to public administration is the importance of culture. Dr Benjamin Worthy wrote on this issue in 2007:
The central problem of the Australian FOI Act, highlighted by successive investigations, is the imposition of FOI upon a reluctant public sector with an established practice of secrecy. Many of the problems the Australian FOI Act has experienced stem from this flaw and it is the continued existence of this secretive culture that is undermining the effectiveness of the legislation. The attempt to accommodate an FOI scheme onto a traditional ‘closed’ Westminster system has led to resistance aimed at preventing disclosure.
Dr Worthy went on to say that the culture of secrecy manifests itself in different ways but particularly through the misapplication of exemption provisions and delays in decision making. The point was also extensively made in the ALRC report, and I think there is still much that could be learnt and implemented from those recommendations today.
The Solomon review went as far as to recommend that there should be sanctions and incentives to encourage the proper administration of the act. The review also noted the importance of a clearly articulated pro disclosure bias by the parliament as well as public commitments by the leader of the government.
Here I would like to note the other point that has been brought up in this debate—the creation of a push model. The push model involves the proactive disclosure of information by government so that information requests under the FOI Act are not necessary. It is important to make the observation that the bill contains very few push model initiatives. In fact the only provision in the bill is for the disclosure of documents once they have been released by the agency concerned. I think we should consider the option of a scheme akin to chapter 2 of the Queensland act which requires agencies to publish a scheme that sets out classes of information they have and the terms on which that information is made public.
I should make the point that I think in many ways the ACT public service is not nearly as bad in this regard, in this culture of secrecy, as many others across Australia. I would also note that considering some cases in other jurisdictions that have been to the courts and administrative tribunals, the ACT public service is certainly not alone in its difficultly in applying the provisions. Again this highlights why we should be moving away from a class-based system to a public interest based system that has a presumption of disclosure and a clear expectation on decision makers that they bear the onus of demonstrating why it is not in the public interest for access to information to be granted. Certainly there will be difficulties initially but over time this will improve and ultimately we will have a far better scheme for it.
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