Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 13 Hansard (3 December) . . Page.. 4497 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

My experience in government has been that that has not been the case; that people, to some extent, have regard for the implications of what they do in terms of the FOI system. For the most part, the system operates around the assumption that these things will be placed on the table, that people will do their jobs in the usual way, and that, if documents are exposed to the public gaze at a later point in time, so be it; that is the nature of the process. We can tell that that is the case by the large number of documents which are revealed under FOI processes which you might argue could be viewed as damaging, in certain circumstances, to the people who created them, or to the government of the day, or to some agency in some circumstance. If public services were geared around essentially shielding information from this sort of access, I think we would see much less of that occurring; but it does occur, and it occurs quite often. That indicates, I think, that public services have adapted themselves to this regime. I am sure that they will adapt themselves to much of what is in this Bill as well, if it becomes law.

Mr Speaker, I think Mr Osborne's Bill is a significant piece of reform. It is a very comprehensive piece of legislation which does deserve some scrutiny by a parliamentary committee. I look forward to being involved in the process of analysing this in the next Assembly, the electors willing, and I am hopeful that much of what is in this Bill - perhaps all of it; who knows? - could one day become law in the ACT.

MR WOOD (7.39): Mr Speaker, it may well be that Mr Humphries is chair of the Legal Affairs Committee in the next Assembly and could well take this inquiry on board, or it might be Mr Osborne, as Minister, giving directions to a committee. Or was it Mr Moore? Perhaps that is not your portfolio.

Mr Moore: I have not decided yet.

MR WOOD: You have not thought about it yet.

Mr Moore: No; that is not what I said.

MR WOOD: The Assembly seems agreed on the principles at stake here; that Mr Osborne's Bill has good intentions, is well directed and needs further examination. That is certainly the Opposition's view. I think it is the case that, over quite a number of years now since FOI first became a feature of parliaments, the fairly rigid guidelines and the stern approaches on the part of bureaucrats are progressively breaking down. I hope that is the case. I hope that when I was Minister we had an open approach. On a very few occasions I had a note from a bureaucrat saying, "FOI information is being sought on a particular matter". My response always was, "Do not tell me. Give as much information as possible. Be free with the information you give out and do it quickly". I hope that happened.

I want to make a particular point about planning, which is where there are many FOI approaches. To overcome problems, which I concede are very likely there, anybody seeking FOI information on a planning matter, or probably any matter these days, makes a blanket claim, saying, "I want information relating to this, electronically held or in documents". They word their application in such a way as to get absolutely everything on file. For me, it seemed that perhaps what they really wanted was about one per cent

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .