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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2019-04-02 Daily Xml
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Bills

Statutes Amendment and Repeal (Simplify) Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 26 February 2019.)

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (Treasurer) (15:31): I am advised that no other members wish to speak, so I thank members who have made a contribution to this omnibus bill which covers a whole series of bits and pieces from a whole series of pieces of legislation. My office and I, having had discussions with members and their offices, note that there is one issue outstanding. Of course, there might be others raised at the committee stage, and I welcome that.

The Hon. Mr Parnell has raised some issues in relation to—and to quote him directly, I think—the 'accessibility of these particular notices on government websites'. In particular, he asked, 'What policies or protocols did the government have in place to guide public notification? Is there, in fact, any overall policy in this area?' A very hardworking member of my staff has spent hundreds of hours—and I say that with tongue in cheek—looking at the issues that the Hon. Mr Parnell has raised. On behalf of the government, and based on the work that not only the Hon. Mr Parnell must have done, I am sure, but that my staff member has done, I think there is merit in the claims that the honourable member has made in relation to the difficulty in terms of accessibility.

I do not believe with good faith that public servants are deliberately trying to bury the notices in the most obscure sections of their websites but I cannot guarantee that, of course. I do not believe that is the case. I think it is a simple fact that sometimes the complexity of the way some of these websites have been constructed contributes to this.

For the benefit of members, my staff member has advised me that some websites do not have a clear allocated notice menu. On other websites you have to go through multiple submenus to access a page with notices. This staff member found that most menus have notices split up into different categories, separated by different submenus, i.e. notices to fishing would be under a fishing submenu and notices to primary industries would be under a submenu under a primary industries tab, rather than having one allocated in the department as a menu for notices. My staff member also stated, 'Each website had a different set of menus and submenus and lacking consistency to accessibility.' I will place some examples on the record. Of the DPTI website's notice for mariners, my staff member said:

Navigation was not simple on this website. I was unable to find this page by using the menu and submenu links. After searching for several minutes, I did a search for notices to which I found this particular page [the notice for mariners]. For an individual who is not sure what to look for, locating this page and knowing what to look for would be difficult. The current publications and notices tab leads to the below which does not have notices on the page.

If you go to the subtab under publications and notices, it has freedom of information notices, annual reports, planning publications, transport publications, infrastructure publications—lots of important information, but not the notice for mariners.

Another search was for the Registrar-General's notice to lodging parties. My staff member said, 'This was very easy to access. I was able to find this page within two clicks and in under 30 seconds.' So it is not consistently difficult; it is just consistently inconsistent and variable in terms of accessibility. Another example was the EPA website, which I am sure the Hon. Mr Parnell would access frequently. My staff member said:

I have been unable to locate their public notice of amendments page after spending over 10 minutes on the website.

The Hon. M.C. Parnell: I'll tell him where it is; I found it.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: One should not assume it is a 'him'.

The Hon. M.C. Parnell: I thought you said 'him', sorry.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: No, I said 'staff member'. I use non-gender specific, politically correct language, unlike the Greens, the Hon. Mr Parnell. In relation to the PIRSA website, my staff member said:

There is no direct link to public notices for amendments. When you do a generic search within the website for notices this appears (3 clicks within the website to access from the home page). Only subject specific notices are available. The website is not easy to use.

There are a number of other examples but I will not waste the time of the council. The point I am making is that, on behalf of the government, I accept the point made by the Hon. Mr Parnell. On behalf of the government, I am happy to explore this further during the committee stage, but at the second reading I am prepared to give an undertaking.

I think there is someone who is prepared to come in and have a chat with the Hon. Mr Parnell and his staff on Friday, and the Hon. Mr Parnell can choose to take that up after I have made this statement, but I will leave that to him. On behalf of the government, I am prepared to say that we will have a look at what sort of generic instruction we can provide to departments and agencies in relation to accessibility of these notices on their website.

We can do that through what is known as a DPC circular, which is a common device that the government of the day can use to provide advice to departments and agencies, or some other device. We have a number of ways, through Premier's directions, DPC circulars and the Commissioner for Public Sector employment. There are a number of devices we can use, but probably the most likely would be a DPC circular. The intent would be to see whether we could, in simple language, talk about the ease of access.

I am sure the honourable member would not require us to have something so rigorous and standardised that it would require redesign and expenditure of some websites, which are quite antiquated and outdated. Certainly, that ought to be a point of emphasis for any upgrade of websites that might occur in the future.

Nevertheless, given the range of websites that we have—some which are very easy to access, others which are more difficult—we will look at constructing either a directive or a letter to chief executives of departments and agencies indicating that we have given a commitment on behalf of the government, not just to the Hon. Mr Parnell but to the rest of the parliament.

We accept this is an issue. It is certainly not the intention of the government to hide these notices. The intention is for ease of access so that most people will be able to access them. We will look at ways of encouraging departments and agencies to respond to the valid commentary that the Hon. Mr Parnell has made during his second reading contribution. With that, I am happy to finish the second reading contribution and move into committee stage.

Bill read a second time.

Committee Stage

In committee.

Clause 1.

The Hon. M.C. PARNELL: First of all, I would like to thank the minister for his commitments at the close of the second reading. I am glad that my comments did not fall on completely barren ground and that the government does recognise that there is a lot of work to do when it comes to publication of information that citizens have a right to see. Obviously, the importance of this topic is because, whilst the simplify bill proposes some 98 separate amendments to 52 separate acts of parliament, the bulk of the amendments—not all of them but the bulk of them—do relate to the publication of government information and the inclusion of websites as a more modern means of communication to supplement the daily newspaper and the Government Gazette.

As I think I pointed out when I spoke on the second reading, we did have a fairly comprehensive briefing involving a great many public servants who could answer some but not all of the questions that I raised. They then took, I think, some eight questions on notice, and it took a couple of goes to get those answers, but ultimately they were all answered. As a consequence, I did tell the Treasurer that I did not require the bulk of the South Australian Public Service to be in the chamber today and that I was not going to ask specific questions about specific bills, but I will make a very brief observation.

First, the minister is correct, in that the Premier's office has reached out and offered to provide my staff and I with a briefing on Friday in relation to the overall questions of government policy when it comes to notification of information and government websites. I will take up that offer and I thank the Premier for that; it need not stand in the way of the passage of this bill today. The other point I make is that, as some members may have gathered over the last 13 years, I do get cranky when I miss important things that I wanted to know about but could not find.

Sometimes I will take responsibility for that but sometimes it is because they were so deeply hidden within newspapers, Government Gazettes or websites that it would have taken superhuman efforts to locate the information. My daughter has since told me that there is a name for it, and that I suffer from a condition called FOMO, which apparently stands for 'fear of missing out'. I do not accept that characterisation because the sort of information I am looking for is information about how to respond to government policy or to pending government decisions.

The point that I raised in my second reading, and the minister has alluded to it a little bit, is improvements that can be made. The minister has quite rightly referred to the fact that government websites vary in their design, in their age and in their usability. What I did raise in my second reading contribution, and I will raise with the Premier's staff when I meet with them on Friday, is that it is so much easier if we go to a push rather than a pull way of looking at information.

The minister used the example of notice to mariners. That is not something I am looking for regularly, but it would seem that, if I were a person with a boat who was out regularly and wanted to know whether there were things out on the sea that I might run into or areas that I should not go, subscribing to a service called 'notice to mariners' so that I got a direct notification every time there was something I needed to know is a far better way of doing it than having to hunt through newspapers, the Government Gazette or websites to find information.

I appreciate that it is not a matter of legislation, necessarily. I think that legislation traditionally has set out the bare minimum that needs to be done in order to satisfy requirements. Governments can, nevertheless, do more than the minimum that is required.

With those brief observations on the record, I thank the minister for his response. I look forward to working with the Premier's office and with the minister. I expect this will not be the last we talk about access to information in this place; it is certainly something the Greens are keen to pursue in this current government, to improve the way citizens find out what is going on and to improve the way government agencies and departments tell citizens things they have a right to know. With that contribution on clause 1, I have no amendments and no further questions on any other clauses.

Clause passed.

Remaining clauses (2 to 102) and title passed.

Bill reported without amendment.

Third Reading

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (Treasurer) (15:47): I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Bill read a third time and passed.

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