Page 408 - Week 02 - Thursday, 8 March 2007
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Mr Speaker, the government does not accept the opposition’s critique in this regard and would urge members to support this clause.
MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (4.52): Mr Speaker, the minister says, “We are actually making it better and harder for people to knock back someone’s request. We are setting out criteria so that the process will be clearer.” Actually, what we are doing is we are encouraging officials to find ways of refusing and it will be made easier for bureaucrats to refuse documentation. As I said this morning in the in-principle stage, the current attitude of officials in the ACT is not helped by this matter before us today, nor the attitude of this minister, who, as we saw this morning, knows very little about the operation of the Freedom of Information Act.
I would like to read into Hansard a letter that I received recently in relation to an FOI request that I made on a series of correspondence. It says:
In my letter of 20 February 2007 I identified a broad range of documents as possibly falling within the scope of your request and asked that you consider refining it. I also indicated the workload involved in giving access to all of the documents …
It goes on:
As the authorised decision maker, if I have not received a response from you by Thursday 1 March 2007 I intend to consider whether your request should be refused in accordance with section 23 (1) of the FOI Act.
So we actually have misapplication of section 23 already in hand in departments in the ACT. What this minister is doing here today is, in fact, making it easier for bureaucrats to knock back requests.
I suppose it is discomforting for members of the bureaucracy when their political masters make silly decisions, as they did in the case of school closures, but I believe that the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act should allow me and other members of the public considerable access to the documents therein and it is not appropriate for officials to come up with the high-handed approach of saying, “If you do not do things by a particular day, I will consider disallowing your request under section 23.” Today, the minister is making it easier for bureaucrats to do just that.
MR STEFANIAK (Ginninderra—Leader of the Opposition) (4.55): Nice try, Mr Corbell, but it failed. I am well aware of what must not be had regard to, but I think that that is a fairly feeble list of what cannot be had regard to. There are simply three items there. Whilst, of course, it does limit the matters that the minister may have regard to in relation to the rest of the clause, I do not think the minister has made out a case remotely in relation to why this clause could not be open to so much abuse by a government or by a department or agency.
Question put:
That clause 7 be agreed to.
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