Talk:Freedom of Information Act/Tasmania, Australia

Liberals promises on FOI reform
http://www.parliament.tas.gov.au/HansardHouse/isysquery/be11ba73-73df-4daa-9c12-09aab1ddce23/1/doc/ 5 March 2009 - Part 2 - Pages 30 - 100

Michael Hodgman

Mr Deputy Speaker, the State Opposition, we the State Liberals, pledge to overhaul the current FreedomNext Hit of Previous HitInformationNext Hit Act. This is long overdue. Labor has done nothing about it despite frequent promises to do so. Under our Leader, the State Liberals have made a firm commitment that in government we will introduce a new open government act which will not only include the Previous HitfreedomNext Hit of Previous HitinformationNext Hit administrative regime but would also include a range of brand new measures to greatly improve transparency, accountability and accessibility. Again, this is long overdue.

Under a State Liberal government the Executive Council and Cabinet agendas will be publicly available after the relevant meeting. This is not the deliberations or the decisions but the subjects that were discussed. For goodness' sake, if the Privy Council in London can publish its agendas, surely we can here in Tasmania. We will introduce changes to the law to provide that Previous HitfreedomNext Hit of Previous HitinformationNext Hit requests are responded to on time or there is no charge. We will require all annual reports to include information on the departments' or agencies' compliance with Previous HitfreedomNext Hit of Previous HitinformationNext Hit, including how many were late or refused and why. When the Previous HitfreedomNext Hit of Previous HitinformationNext Hit material is provided late, the head of the relevant agency will have to provide an explanation to the requester as to why.

Open government will only work if the Tasmanian Ombudsman is given proper support. In 2004 we argued that there should be a deputy ombudsman, and we commit to that. In addition, the Ombudsman will be separately appointed as public information commissioner. His or her role in regard to Previous HitfreedomNext Hit of Previous HitinformationNext Hit will be enhanced. The Audit Act will be changed to empower the Auditor-General to include, in his or her efficiency audits, the extent to which the agency has taken steps to make information public.

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In government we will ensure that, as happens effectively in at least one other jurisdiction, the Justice department will provide support to agencies to deal with spikes in FOI requests. We are all aware the agency is small and complex Previous HitfreedomNext Hit of Previous HitinformationNext Document request creates a significant administrative strain. In the twenty-first century it is ridiculous that our Tasmanian Government Gazette is not available in full electronically immediately it is published. We will have the Tasmanian Government Gazette published on line and be available for e-mail subscription. This will be in addition to paper copies but it will certainly reduce the paper used and make government decisions known sooner. Mr Speaker, the open government approach we, the State Liberals, follow in government will be to push information out to the public rather than wait until people have to pull it out of the Government, or, as is the case with this Labor Government, to drag it out of the Government.

Amendments to FOI
http://www.parliament.tas.gov.au/HansardHouse/isysquery/be11ba73-73df-4daa-9c12-09aab1ddce23/4/doc/ 15 October 2009 - Part 2 - Pages 44 - 148 Lara Giddings

That the bill be now read the second time.

In August 2008 the Premier, David Bartlett announced a 10-point plan to strengthen trust in democracy and political processes in Tasmania. That agenda included a review of the Previous DocumentFreedomNext Hit of Previous HitInformationNext Hit Act 1991 with a view to improving transparency in the operations and decision-making processes of the Government through better access to information for all Tasmanians.

The introduction of this bill is the culmination of 11 very intensive, inclusive months of work towards that goal. Tasmania has taken a leading role in the current nationwide review of government information handling processes.

The construction of this bill has been made possible by seeking constant input from the widest possible range of sources, from experts in the field, to the public and interested organisations, and the public sector, including both policy and operational employees. There has been engagement with the members of the Opposition, and it has been particularly pleasing and encouraging that the Greens have fully participated in providing comments and vital feedback on the bill throughout the process.

It became clear whilst listening to the input that there is a significant need for change to the Tasmanian system for handling the release of information. Change was supported by all contributors and there was a high degree of consensus on the direction of that change. The new framework put to the House in this bill has four key elements, which are: it mandates the proactive release of information; it includes an enhanced role for the Ombudsman in relation to both review and the monitoring of the release of information; it minimises fees payable for the formal release of information and for the first time seeks to clarify what exactly the public interest test consists of. I will now go on to look at these four main features of the bill in more detail.

The new system for disseminating information is very different to the current one. It has defined information disclosure into four categories, namely required disclosure, which is information already required to be released by law; routine disclosure, which is information which a body decides to release on a routine basis; active disclosure, being information which is freely released on request; and assessed disclosure which is information which is released on application after it has been assessed against the legislation.

This feature is the legislative core of the major culture change we hope will be facilitated by this bill. The first two methods are not reliant on a request to be available; information in this category will automatically be accessible to Tasmanians. Current examples of this sort of disclosure are the publishing by the Government of the Health Progress Chart and the Schools Improvement Report. All public authorities will be encouraged to publish information on web sites in this way. The release of this information will result in less need for assessed disclosure - effectively this is the key element of the 'push' or 'proactive disclosure' model.

The third method, active disclosure, allows for an informal release of information that is not of sufficient interest to be published regularly, but may be of interest to some Tasmanians nonetheless, and does not require scrutiny to ensure it is not exempt.

The fourth method, assessed disclosure, replaces the current method for release of information under the Previous HitFreedomNext Hit of Previous HitInformationNext Hit Act 1991. When an application comes in and the information it refers to is of a nature that requires consideration as to whether it is exempt information as in Part 3 of the bill, it will be considered assessed disclosure. It is hoped that this formal process will rarely be necessary.

The second key element is the extended role of the Ombudsman. As a small jurisdiction Tasmania has a tradition of combining roles/jurisdictions across a number of justice areas, streamlining and ensuring the cost effectiveness of the public service. The bill provides that the Office of the Ombudsman continues to be the review body for the Right to Information Act and further provides for the Ombudsman to publish decisions of note as a guide to interpretation of the act; to prepare and maintain practice guidelines on the application of the legislation; to have greater flexibility and increased powers in determining reviews; and to conciliate applications for review whereupon the agreed outcomes will have the force of a decision of Ombudsman.

The third main feature of the bill is the innovative fee structure it implements. The bill proposes that each application for assessed disclosure be accompanied by an application fee of 25 fee units, which at this time is $33.25. This application fee can be waived for those of a low income status, for instance healthcare cardholders, and for members of parliament acting in connection with their official duty. Apart from this one-off application fee, similar to those charged for applications and in six other Australian Jurisdictions, there will be no further fees levied on the applicant in return for information, whereas in the current Previous HitFreedomNext Hit of Previous HitInformationNext Hit Act 1991 fees have been charged for searching, photocopying and transcripts. No fees at all are to be levied in the case of required, routine or active disclosures - for example, annual reports and the like. But there is information such as the road rules, for instance, or school materials that might have a charge attached to them. There is still information in the public arena, but there is a charge for buying a book about the road rules. These are the lowest fees to be found anywhere in the country in this sort of legislation.

Finally, the clarification of the public interest test is an important feature of the new system. Feedback gathered throughout the consultation and drafting stages of the bill indicated that this test was one of the biggest issues with the current act and needed to be made clearer and more user-friendly, especially as in the current act there are no less that five separate tests to be applied to different exemption provisions. There has also been confusion regarding whether 'in the public interest' means 'things which interest the public' which is of course very different to 'things that are in the interests of the public to know'.

To that end, the exemptions in this bill that are to be subject to the public interest test are separated from those which refer to information that is exempt by its nature. At the beginning of that division, there is a clause referring to schedules 1 and 2. Schedule 1 is an extensive but not exhaustive list of 25 matters to be considered when assessing if the disclosure of particular information would not be contrary to the public interest. It covers such matters as the general public need for government information to be accessible; whether the disclosure would promote or hinder equity and fair treatment of persons or corporations in their dealings with government; and whether the disclosure would enhance scrutiny of government decision-making processes and thereby improve accountability and participation.

Schedule 2 is a list of the matters which are not to be taken into account when assessing whether disclosure of particular information would be contrary to the public interest. These include such factors as the seniority of the person responsible for preparing the information, or indeed the subject of the information; that the disclosure of the information may lead to loss of confidence in the government; and that the disclosure would lead to the applicant being unable to understand or to misinterpret the information.

The bill makes it very clear that disclosure of information must occur unless its disclosure would be contrary to the public interest, which supports the 'push' model of proactive disclosure.

This bill hopes to change the prevailing view that this sort of legislation is a means to block the disclosure of information, instead of a means to encourage and streamline disclosure with a framework of protection in limited circumstances.

The Previous HitFreedomNext Hit of Previous HitInformationNext Hit Act 1991 was a very important and successful piece of legislation that has slowly become eroded and outdated since its introduction 18 years ago. At that time Tasmania was at the dawn of the digital information age, access to computers was limited, the Internet did not exist in Tasmania, e-mails were not part of normal government communication and the sophisticated information management tools that we now have access to, were not available.

The Right to Information Bill is legislation for today and for the future, dedicated to improving democratic government in Tasmania by increasing the accountability of the executive to the people of Tasmania; by increasing the ability of the people of Tasmania to participate in their own governance; and by acknowledging that information collected by public authorities is collected for and on behalf of the people of Tasmania. I commend this bill to the House.