Page 2589 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 24 August 1993
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
As elected representatives, as people who are elected to represent the community, any information we request could easily and appropriately be regarded as in the public interest. I am certainly not suggesting that frivolous claims should be taken on board, and there have been situations where frivolous claims have been made in other parliaments. I understand that Jeff Kennett chose to introduce his $20 flat fee because of the frivolous requests from members of the Opposition - frivolous to the extent that one of the requests asked whether the Government paid for a top hat and set of tails. Mr Kennett appropriately said, "No, we will not impose fees that are open-ended".
I think it is important to look at the fees somebody who requests information is up for, if the fees are not remitted. First of all, we have an application fee of $30. Nobody is arguing whether that is appropriate or not. A $30 fee is totally acceptable. However, on top of that you then have a situation where you pay $15 an hour for location and retrieval of documents, and $20 an hour for decision making. That is open-ended, with no idea of how long people will take. If you have ever tried to get a quote from the ACT Government on what they might charge, there is no way in the world you can get it. You cannot get a clue what it might charge.
To my knowledge, every single parliament in Australia that levies a per hour rate on the general public - because no State parliament, except New South Wales, levies a per hour rate on parliamentarians - will give a quote so that people know what they might be up for. That is not the case in the ACT. If a member of the Opposition or an Independent does not have the fee remitted, and for that matter a member of the public, they are in a position of having an open-ended bill.
Also, under our legislation there is absolutely no capacity to appeal in respect of the remission of fees. All that a Minister or an agency head has to say is that they have decided to impose charges for the processing of your application, full stop. There is no information as to why the request for remission of fees in the public interest has been knocked back, so there is no capacity to know what information you could have put forward to convince the person involved. It seems to us that there would be no capacity to convince anybody, because, the moment the information we request is in any way useful or interesting or has any substance to it, we are knocked back. The fees are not remitted.
This morning on ABC radio, Mr Connolly claimed that, on the basis of figures that one of his researchers had gained last year, fees were levied on members of parliament everywhere in Australia. Mr Connolly was wrong. He misled the people of Canberra.
Mr Connolly: Not as much as you did: "No fees in Victoria".
MRS CARNELL: Do you mean that there are levels of misleading? The fact is that there is no fee for service in Victoria. In Victoria there is a flat application fee - $20, end of deal. Every State makes a photocopying charge. That is just a charge to photocopy, and that is based upon how much information you get. It is just a 10c or 20c or 30c per copy fee for photocopying. Apart from that, Victoria has a flat $20. That is quite acceptable, Mr Connolly. They are very happy to pay $20, but that is all they can be up for. That fee was introduced only on 8 June 1993, on the basis of Mr Kennett being placed in a position of having a number of frivolous complaints. Again, I say that there is no fee for service. There is an application charge, but there is no fee in Victoria.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .