The ACT Opposition has discovered what journalists have known for some years: that the Freedom of Information Act should be renamed the Freedom FROM Information Act.
The Leader of the Opposition, Kate Carnell, said in the Assembly yesterday that a Government with a siege mentality could prevent information being disclosed through using high fees. She did not complain about an upfront flat fee of $20 or $30 to stop frivolous fees. By she did object to fees charged on a per-page or per-hour basis _ the processing fee.
ACT law permits an exemption on public interest grounds or grounds that the applicant cannot afford it.
The Deputy Chief Minister, Wayne Berry, said the Opposition could afford to pay. In doing so, he chided Ms Carnell for being “”a part-time politician” because she runs a pharmacy in Red Hill. He said she was a very highly paid part-time worker. Whatever the truth of the wealth of Opposition to foot the Bill, Mr Berry did not address the public-interest test. A millionaire (Murdoch or Packet, for example) could seek information in the public interest, seeking to disseminate it in their publications.
A lot of debate in Question Time and in the matter of public importance debate centred around whether the ACT provisions and practice were more or less restrictive than other states or whether the present ACT Labor Government is more secretive than its Liberal-dominated Alliance Government. Not a great deal turned on this. It has been fairly well-established that governments of all colours in all jurisdictions attempt to cover their follies and mendacity.
A great deal of time was taken up on whether parliamentarians were more or less favourably treated in the ACT than other jurisdictions or more or less favourably treated than members of the public in the ACT.
It is hardly a defence to say one is less secretive than other states or one is no less secretive to MPs than to the public. The question should be is the ACT more secretive than it ought to be on an objective scale.
The sad fact about FOI law in Australia is that fees can be charged on a prohibitive scale and the law provides numerous exemptions for secrecy “”in the public interest” and in the interest of public administration. Moreover, nearly all the costs associated with an FOI request are not incurred in meeting the request. Quite the opposite: they are incurred in devising ways of screening out sensitive information.
Basically, FOI has been reduced to getting a personal file or harmless government propaganda. Getting any information that embarrasses a government by showing its folly or mendacity requires a huge and discouraging investment in time and money. The ACT Opposition thus found that the Government was not willing to release documents that might have proved that it funded an abortion clinic in an underhand, mendacious way under the cloak of whatever secrecy it could muster.
What is needed is for the Opposition to place on the table a Bill to change the FOI law which basically says everything is open, subject to a small application fee and a 20c a page copying fee. And that the Government is to bear the cost and onus in seeking exemptions.
Gary Humphries, who raised the FOI issue in the Assembly last week, said the test of a good Government was whether its record could be scrutinised.
Mr Berry was later forced to withdraw his statement about Ms Carnell being a part-time politician. In doing so, he said that Ms Carnell “”is the ACT’s only part-time politician, spending Saturday morning in pharmacy while I’m working in community”.
The Opposition asked questions about the costs of a visiting to Japan by the Chief Minister, Rosemary Follett, and some user-paying private enterprise delegates. It will cost taxpayers about $180,000, Ms Follett revealed. That will buy about three cups of coffee in Japan. And any private-enterprise person dealing with the Japanese realises that unless you have government imprimatur the doors are closed.