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Legislative Council - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-03-25 Daily Xml
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FREEDOM OF INFORMATION

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE (15:20): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Leader of the Government a question regarding freedom of information laws.

Leave granted.

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE: Section 54AA was added to the Freedom of Information Act in 2004 and came into force on 1 January 2005. That section relates to the provision of information to the minister in relation to freedom of information laws. The wording of section 54AA explains that it is intended to enable a minister (meaning the minister responsible for the FOI Act) to monitor compliance with the act and to assist in preparing the annual report required under the act. Section 54AA also allows the minister to require by notice in the Gazette the information necessary to enable that compliance.

I have received concerning information from various sources that ministers are being tipped off about freedom of information requests from members of parliament in the media before the information yielded by the request is given to the member. I know of at least two of my own freedom of information requests where the information concerned mysteriously appeared as a media story featuring the relevant minister. The timing is far too coincidental and, in fact, I have heard claims that ministers are deliberately going to the media with members' FOI requests.

We heard on the television news last night and we see on page 16 of the newspaper today that the Rudd government is moving to 'turn around an official culture of secrecy which has been steadily growing since FOI laws were introduced in 1982'. Special Minister of State Faulkner said that the idea that the best way to protect responsible government is by keeping information about that government as confidential as possible has been very slow to die.

On 28 November 2002 the minister said in answer to a question from the Hon. Rob Lucas that he receives information in relation to FOI requests, namely, the existence of their arrival. The editor of The Advertiser stated in his editorial today:

Revered US President Abraham Lincoln once said, 'Let the people know the facts, and the country will be safe.'

And he gave his endorsement to the federal government's transparency measures as a step in the right direction. Yet an accredited freedom of information officer recently told my office—I will not name the person because I respect and want to protect the officer's integrity within the Public Service—that the law requires them to forward all FOI documentation to a minister a few days before the information is due to go to the person who sought it. Our reading of the law is that it does not do that whatsoever. My questions are:

1. What information does the minister receive about each and every freedom of information request?

2. Has a directive or protocol gone out to all accredited freedom of information officers?

3. Will the government eliminate FOI application fees, as the federal Australian Labor Party government is doing?

4. What was the rationale for these guidelines, set by State Records in January 2005, and why were they not put before the parliament?

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY (Minister for Mineral Resources Development, Minister for Urban Development and Planning, Minister for Small Business) (15:23): The honourable member's problem seems to be that, on the one hand, he talks about the need for the pubic to have information, but it seems that what he wants is information that the opposition can release and pretend that it has some secrecy value because it comes from FOI rather than the information itself being released. Why else would it be a problem?

His complaint seems to be that, if information being sought through an FOI is released beforehand, it seems to kill his media opportunity. Is that really what FOI is all about? Perhaps the game has been given away here, and perhaps all the protestations from the opposition and others about FOI are really about getting publicity for themselves under the pretence that if it is found through FOI it must be deliberately being withheld.

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY: It's about democracy. Well, Mr President, if information is in the hands of government, what is wrong with government releasing that information? That seems to be the problem of the honourable member.

Let me take another slant towards this FOI. I know the honourable member, my opposite number, the Leader of the Opposition, is continually requesting FOIs for a whole series of reports and consultancies which the government has undertaken to develop policy. Of course, members opposite get these and immediately try to pre-empt the government and try to pretend the policy is really their own. Even though, of course, the government has established these reports and set up these committees to receive advice, they try to pre-empt them.

That is all part of the political system, and good luck to them if they can get away with it, but let us not pretend that there is some magic in this information, and let us have none of this nonsense that somehow or other this sort of information is being withheld from the public. I think the honourable member's question really gives it all away when he says what he wants: 'We want to be able to get this information so we can release it and package it up with the spin on it that we want to give, rather than the information being given out.'

In so many cases with FOI, a lot of the information which is being sought—and to get back to the honourable member's question, obviously, I see the requests that come through, because after all they are directed in many cases through the minister's office, or the minister's office will have the information—makes it quite clear from very many of those requests that they are seeking information which is publicly available. What I can say is that taxpayers are spending millions of dollars more than they were when this government came to office in relation to all the employees who are now involved as freedom of information officers in collating the massive increase in the number of FOI requests we have. In this debate on FOI I think it is about time we had some cost benefit analysis towards it, because we often see these fishing expeditions, where you have hundreds of public servants involved—

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY: It's not secret government at all. You have hundreds of officers just trying to collate the requests. They are just fishing expeditions, and anyone who sees these requests would know that they are fishing expeditions. I have always believed that, if a government commissions a report, once it is completed and gone to government, then of course that information, which ultimately the taxpayers have paid for, should be released, unless of course it has some legal or other issues. Of course it should be out there, but what has happened is that we have seen this enormous, massive increase in FOI requests, which is adding millions of dollars to taxpayers—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY: On the contrary. He says, 'Hard working opposition', but in fact it is an incredibly lazy opposition, because most of this information is available. The Hon. Mr Lucas is a classic; the sort of information he requests in relation to salaries of members and staff is all provided in the Gazette every year. Every single year on 1 July you will see in the government Gazette the information that relates to ministers' staff and advisers, but that does not stop members such as the Hon. Mr Lucas seeking to duplicate all that for different periods of time.

Since this government has come to office we have changed the freedom of information laws very significantly to increase the amount of information, and the number of FOI requests provided under this government has grown by a quantum change. What we see is the absolute laziness of some of those members opposite who are not prepared to do their own research and who simply use many of these exercises as a fishing expedition.

In relation to the last part of the honourable member's question, where he was asking about fees and what the commonwealth government might do, that is clearly a matter for them and the minister but, from my perspective in relation to fees, I think there has to be some limit, given that there has been a massive escalation in the costs of dealing with these. It is about time we had a cost benefit analysis as to whether all these exercises, which are largely fishing trips, really warrant the massive increase in expenditure.

Of course, MPs get them free anyway, but if every member of the public could get these things for free there would be not only a massive increase in the number of requests but also the cost to the taxpayer—and, ultimately, it is the taxpayer who must pay the cost—would go up exponentially.

There are two sides to this story and, to go back to the point the honourable member is making, if there is an FOI request of the government—and some of the information might be held in the minister's office—of course the minister will know that the request exists. If that information is released, so what? Is that not the whole purpose of FOI? Is the honourable member really saying that FOI should exist only to serve the media interests of non-government members? I do not believe so.

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