How is it that governments can sometimes initiate great public inquiries into major policy questions with submissions being made public – even on the internet – and interim and final reports again being cast into the public arena for intemperate journalists and ill-tempered Opposition members to trawl their way through for their argumentative ammunition?
The Garnaut inquiry into climate change and the Henry inquiry into tax are good examples.
Yet, on other occasions, the pontifications of great policy questions are deemed too sensitive for the great unwashed public to see, for it is “in the public interest” for the public not to see them. The ACT Government’s Strategic and Functional Review of the ACT Public Sector and Services is an example. You know, the one the Government relied upon to close schools. The Federal Treasury’s advice on the first-home-buyers’ grant a decade ago was another.
It is so puzzling because we have so many public-policy discussions, papers and reports some of which governments say the public should be allowed to see and others not — when all of them are just reports about policy and executive and legislative choices.
Could it be that an independent inquiry by an independent inquirer warrants openness, but the frank and fearless advice of a public servant after thorough research requires secrecy? No, that does not gel. Ken Henry is a frank and fearless public servant yet his tax review is very public. And, conversely, the ACT’s public-sector inquiry was done by an independent inquirer and its results are to remain secret, if the ACT Government has its way.
It seems the difference in government attitude does not depend on whether the Government is left or right, federal or state. Nor does it depend on the category or quality of the information – research, policy options or recommendations.
No. The critical question on whether a government wants to free the information or imprison it is whether the government has already acted in relation to the information.
If it has not acted, then it will free the information, saying: “Look, we are acting. We are doing something. We have had an inquiry.”
But if the Government has already acted then the chance of the release will be just 50-50. If the Government’s action has caused voter anger or somehow has been silly, misguided, wrong-headed or whatever, and the information points to alternatives that it could have taken, then the Government will do all in its power to prevent the release of the information.
If, however, the Government’s action has pleased the voters, it will free the information whether it is in accord with the action or not. If in accord, the Government will say, “See what an intelligent Government we are. We got advice and acted soundly upon it.” If not in accord, the Government will say, “See how we bravely rejected the advice in favour of more favourable action.”
Yes, privacy, commercial-in-confidence and national security can warrant secrecy. But too often their net is cast wider than necessary and they are used as an excuse not to release information.
Other spurious reasons are given for non-release. The classic is that if advice is to become public, public servants will not make it frank and fearless. But the corollary of that is frightening: if the public is to know about these policy options then we must not be frank and fearless – we must lie, mislead, sugarcoat.
This week the Federal Government announced major changes to the Freedom of Information Act. The changes prove the point that changes to government openness can only be effected (yes, subs, effected) early in a government’s term. Even now, half way into the Rudd Government’s term, it might be too late. Soon this Government will have things to hide or will have acted in a silly, misguided or wrong-headed way and documents will reside in the bureaucracy to prove it.
The Stanhope (also Labor) Government has been in power for more than eight years and has a fair amount to hide: bushfires, school closures, power stations and so on. Its approach is radically different from its federal counterpart. This week it argued that it is in the public interest for the public not to know the basis upon which their schools were closed.
In theory the Federal changes, put together by Special Minister for State John Faulkner, will change the secrecy mentality. But the changes are merely a necessary condition for more openness, not a sufficient one.
Obviously, a cultural change is needed to make openness the norm, not the exception. The real question is how do we effect a cultural change?
Perhaps we need to look more closely at the nature of information than the nature of public servants holding it. Governments have to be persuaded that openness is in their interest.
When the public does not have information, it judges in a vacuum, and therefore more harshly. It assumes the Government is making decisions with the same information (or lack of it) that the public has. The public asks how can the Government be making such a crazy decision? Armed with the background the public will get more understanding. It will understand how difficult government is.
Sure, not all of vast unwashed would plough through all or even a fair portion of the information that a government has if it were all released. But information has a trickle-across effect. Those that digest it, spread the arguments to others.
Stanhope is being foolish not to release the Costello report. Sure, he might get a few hotheads in the schools debate saying he could have acted differently. But if he handed the report out the public would probably get an understanding about the difficulty of government choices.
If, on the other hand, the Costello report shows that Stanhope made a hash of the school closures and other decisions at the time then it is clearly in the public interest that the public know about it, even if it is not the Government’s short-term interest.
Releasing such reports will usually be in a Government’s long-term interest. Release can only build confidence and trust in a government. Secrecy builds suspicion and mistrust that is more corrosive of voter support for a Government than openly admitting mistakes.
It is like corrections in a newspaper – they suggest that everything else must be right if the mistakes are admitted. They build confidence.
This is why one element of the Faulkner reforms is crucial — the setting up of an independent arbiter to determine what information should be freed. The Government should not be a judge in its own cause.
Eventually governments will see that it will be liberating for everyone to know that the normal pattern will be that the public will eventually get the information upon which they make decisions. Governments will able to tell the cronies, special interests and others to contribute to bad decision-making to clear off because an about-to-be informed public is watching.
Freed from the cronies and special interests, governments will make fewer misguided decisions even though they will not be entirely immune from silly ones. They will be saved from themselves.