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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 13 Hansard (3 December) . . Page.. 4498 ..

MR WOOD (continuing):

or 5 per cent of what they got. I have seen some of these files. There are a couple of well-known cases around the place that I have raised in this Assembly. The amount of material that was received and the amount of time that was given to it was disproportionate to what was actually wanted.

I used to think that in the planning area, although I was never in a position where I could advance it further, maybe we needed some statutory form. A running sheet was kept, as required by law, relating to all key data. Maybe it would not work. Maybe when you chair this committee next year, Mr Humphries, you could look at something like that, so that it obviates the need for a bureaucrat somewhere, or numbers of them, to turn out an enormous volume of simply unnecessary material. It is a costly job and I think governments do have a mind to that cost from time to time.

I think we do need to develop also a confidence on the part of applicants that they will get the core of what they want. The fact that applicants will apply for everything, every document that exists, indicates a lack of confidence in the system. They expect that if there is something there that a bureaucrat might want to hide they will not get it. So, along with any changes, I think the output from the bureaucracy needs to be such, over a period, as to convince people that they will get the material that they are really seeking.

I think in the long term we have to see whether we can avoid the system whereby so much unnecessary material is turned out. I find that a significant problem. I do not think it is as significant a problem as the ones that Mr Osborne has tried to address in his Bill. We are all committed to open government. We are all committed to providing information. I think there has been an excess of caution over the years as to what bureaucrats and perhaps politicians sometimes want to allow to be released. That era, I am confident, has passed.

There is a number of strands that we can investigate in the next Assembly. Let us go down that path and let us finish up with a system that is comprehensive, open and efficient and does not waste too much time on the part of those providing the materials. I think we can get to that end. Mr Osborne's Bill is a good further step in that direction.

MS TUCKER (7.44): Mr Speaker, the Greens wholeheartedly support Paul Osborne's Bill to improve freedom of information law. Public access to information held by government which affects them directly or which provides the explanation of why certain decisions are made is a cornerstone of our democratic system. Any action to expand FOI provisions can only be an improvement, in our view. Mr Osborne is to be commended for putting forward this Bill, but I must say that I do not think it goes far enough.

Much of the Bill is essentially a rewrite of some of the existing provisions in a more plain English style, which is a good move in itself; but there needs to be some fundamental review of other parts of the Act. For example, the Bill currently before the Assembly does not address the issue of commercial-in-confidence. It also does not address in detail whether the charging regime for access to documents provides a reasonable balance between covering the costs to government of supplying documents and the need to not discourage people who want to access documents but who may not be able to pay these charges.

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