Page 2594 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 24 August 1993
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Mr Cornwell: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I really must take objection to those words, "their lack of application". That is a slur upon the Liberal members who were present at the Estimates Committee. There were some members absent, but the suggestion that we failed to apply ourselves, I believe, is a quite unfair comment.
MR CONNOLLY: Madam Speaker, I would certainly withdraw in relation to Mr Cornwell because, from my recollection, he was assiduous in asking questions. He was noticeable by his presence, as opposed to members who were noticeable by their absence.
MADAM SPEAKER: Thank you, Mr Connolly.
MR CONNOLLY: Madam Speaker, there are a range of measures by which members of this Assembly can apply to get information about the activities of government. They can ask questions on notice, and they do regularly.
Mrs Carnell: And the Act says FOI as well.
MR CONNOLLY: They use FOI, and they get charges remitted at the same rate at which charges were remitted when your party was in government, Mrs Carnell. The suggestion that you keep trying to beat up when there is no other story running, that somehow this Labor Government is secretive in relation to FOI, is simply not borne out by the facts. The facts show that we are refusing fewer applications for access than were refused during the period that you were in office. We are dealing with more applications in total terms and last year we refused access in full to only some 3.3 per cent of applications, as opposed to that 9.8 per cent when you were in office.
We apply a regime of fees and charges which has been constant since this administration was set up, with one exception, and that is that this Labor Government changed the fee for access to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. Previously a $240 fee was levied to appeal. We reduced that to a $135 fee to appeal. So the only change to the fees and charges regime which applied when you were in office has been a reduction in the rate which applicants to the AAT are charged. The fees have remained constant. The fees were applied by your administration when you were in office to give remissions in about 40 per cent of cases; and they are applied by this administration to achieve remissions in about 40 per cent of cases.
As for the position in other States, which we have been through, there will be much quibbling and agitation over the precise position in different States. With the exception of Tasmania, where it does appear that no charges at all are applied for politicians, the situation is that those other States which have working FOI regimes apply fees of one sort or another to politicians. Victoria again was an exception to that rule prior to the decision of Mr Kennett, and I was intrigued by Mrs Carnell's enthusiastic support for Mr Kennett. She said that he had to act because there were all these frivolous requests by opposition members; so he was right in acting. It is an interesting mind-set; that anything that Mrs Carnell wants is legitimately in the public interest and she should be granted access to it in full and with no fees, whereas Mr Kennett was quite right in dealing with those terrible opposition members who were making frivolous FOI requests.
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