Page 2602 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 24 August 1993
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MR HUMPHRIES (4.48): Madam Speaker, it is amazing how every MPI we bring up is a farce. Is it not amazing? There is never anything of any substance if it in any way attacks or draws criticism towards this Government. It is really amazing, is it not? Madam Speaker, I think this Government has a lot to answer for on the question of access to information. I think this Government has a very unfortunate record on this question and it deserves to face the music on occasions such as this.
Let me, first of all, rectify some of the impressions created by the Attorney-General when he spoke about this Government's record on matters of freedom of information. I quote from reports in the Canberra Times of October last year and January this year concerning access to information under FOI. Mr Connolly, it seemed to me, was quick to say that the record of his Government with respect to supplying information - that is, the number of requests that were granted each year - was going up. Each year it was getting better and better and he was improving on the record. Well, obviously Mr Crispin Hull of the Canberra Times got it very badly wrong when he reported on 17 October last year that, in 1989-90, 67 per cent of FOI requests were granted in full; in 1990-91 it fell to 42 per cent; and last financial year, that is 1991-92, the last year for which we have any figures I might point out, it fell to 32 per cent.
Mr De Domenico: Was that under the Alliance Government?
MR HUMPHRIES: No, it was not under the Alliance Government. This was under the Labor Government - 32 per cent. The Minister can bluster all he likes but those figures are worse; 42 per cent is a better figure than 32 per cent, and 32 per cent is worse than 42 per cent. There is no justification for saying that this Government's record on FOI has got any better. In fact it has got worse. Almost two-thirds of freedom of information requests in that financial year were not decided upon within the time required by law. That is an appalling record. That is hopeless. Mr Rod Campbell, in the Canberra Times of January this year, opened his article by saying:
The ACT bureaucracy is more secretive than its federal counterpart, takes longer to respond to Freedom of Information Act requests, and is more likely to charge fees for the requests it grants.
That was from the 1991-92 annual report on the operation of the Freedom of Information Act. In answering these sorts of concerns we saw resort to the usual tactic of this Government, which is to pick off issues of irrelevance and to focus on those issues, to draw the fire away from the matters of real concern. So we saw a whole series of red herrings being trotted out by this Government. We saw the rate of remission of fees being referred to by Mr Connolly at great length. He said, "We have had a better rate of remission of fees than you had and the rate of remission of fees is getting better over a period of time".
With respect, Madam Speaker, the information that we have been talking about in this debate has been focused very heavily on the question of the operation of this Assembly and of members of this Assembly, and there is no way that you can make any reasonable argument for saying that members of this Assembly have had better access to information over a period. In fact, the Minister's failure to
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