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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2011-12-01 Daily Xml
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FREEDOM OF INFORMATION

The Hon. M. PARNELL (14:46): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Leader of Government Business questions about the reply to a question asked last year about the Digging Deep report.

Leave granted.

The Hon. M. PARNELL: In November last year, the Social Inclusion Unit released a glossy coffee table book entitled Digging deep: social benefits of mining in South Australia. This report caused a furore at the time because of its use of the Social Inclusion Unit's budget to prepare low content corporate spin that should really have come from the Chamber of Mines. In response to that release, I lodged a Freedom of Information Act request to ascertain the cost and distribution of the report. In the usual manner it ended up going to the Ombudsman but last week I finally received a response, almost 12 months to the day after my original request.

At the same time I was lodging that request, the Hon. David Ridgway asked a similar question without notice in this place, followed by a supplementary, to then minister Paul Holloway. Minister Holloway said that he would take the questions on notice and bring back a response. The Freedom of Information Act response details an initial quote of about $9,000 for the 500 copies. This was followed up with a more expensive quote for a 'perfect bound' book for $18,674 for the design and printing and a further Australia Post pricing statement for approximately $1,700 to distribute the reports.

What is most interesting in the FOI documents is that the response was prepared by the department to the Hon. David Ridgway's questions, and those drafts were prepared one week after the honourable member asked the question. The final minute was dated 3 December 2010. What the response details is that the cost of production was ultimately $18,113 including GST (but excluding postage), but it also documents the list of recipients.

It says of the 500 copies of this book that were produced, 371 of those (the vast bulk) went to: 12 to the mining companies which contributed; 10 to mining companies which did not contribute to the publication; 143 to mining company board members; 52 to additional mining industry contacts; 47 to South Australian MPs; 22 to South Australian MLCs; 27 to relevant interstate and commonwealth ministers; 13 to board members of the Economic Development Board; 20 to agency CEOs and additional departmental contacts; 25 to NGOs; then there were 29 all together which went to Aboriginal agencies and local government; and 100 were retained by the Social Inclusion Unit.

Leaving aside the question of the appalling use of taxpayers' resources to produce this book, the fact that the response was prepared a year ago but despite my thorough searching of Hansard I can find no record of the answer ever having been provided here in parliament, and that raises a number of intriguing questions about the government's handling of questions taken on notice. My questions are:

1. Why wasn't a reply given in parliament when the public sector resources had been used to prepare a response a whole 12 months ago?

2. What is the government's time frame for responding to questions taken on notice during question time?

3. Does this exercise demonstrate that if we want an answer to a question we have asked in parliament, we should also put in a Freedom of Information Act request at the same time?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO (Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries, Minister for Forests, Minister for Regional Development, Minister for Tourism, Minister for the Status of Women) (14:49): Well, they do anyway. They put FOIs in on everything, including documents that are already on the public record. That aside, clearly, this is a matter that was the responsibility of the former minister. I would not know what problems there were or why an answer was not given. I would be more than happy to have that checked out to see if there is any explanation for that.

We attempt, wherever possible, to answer questions without notice, and with notice, as soon as we possibly can. We genuinely attempt to expedite those. That is our position, that we try to answer questions as expeditiously as we possibly can. However, I have to say that there are many questions that are asked, often requiring a great deal of detailed information that is not readily available, and that takes a great deal of time.

The Hon. M. Parnell interjecting:

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: I have probably been distracted by some other furphy question that was holding up a whole agency of staff to try to dig down and find some obscure piece of information that is relevant to very little. The point I am trying to make is that a great deal of time, energy, resources and money is put into the responses to these questions. Many of these questions are quite mischievous; they are not genuine questions at all. I am not suggesting for one minute that the question that the Hon. Mark Parnell has asked is not genuine, I am just speaking in a—

The Hon. D.W. Ridgway interjecting:

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: Your one on Port Adelaide today, I think, is a good example of political opportunism and abuse of question time. You have given me a very good example of the point that I am trying to make, in terms of how these things can be abused. In terms of time frames, the answer is: as soon as possible. In terms of why it was not: I am not sure but I am happy to check that out and if there is an answer to that then I am happy to bring that back. I think there was just the two questions?

The Hon. M. Parnell: Should we lodge FOIs?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: I answered that one first, that you do anyway and you also lodge FOIs for documents that are already on the public record; often you do not even bother to check whether the information is publicly available or not.

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