Page 423 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 13 March 2007
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MR SPEAKER: The question before the house is that amendments Nos 1 to 4 be agreed to and it is a requirement of the standing orders that you remain relevant. That is the point that I raised.
DR FOSKEY: Mr Speaker, if you continue to take that line, I will dispense with that part of my speech. Is that what you intend?
MR SPEAKER: I put it to you this way: a wide-ranging speech about other matters—
DR FOSKEY: It is not about other matters. It is about the amendments to the Freedom of Information Act.
MR SPEAKER: While ever you stick to the amendments, Dr Foskey, it will be in order.
DR FOSKEY: What do these amendment do? Beyond the usual blather of weasel words about commitment to open government and transparency, they actually slam the door on those two principles. These amendments do not support, to quote the attorney’s presentation speech, “the government’s commitment to open government and transparency principles”. In fact, they do the opposite. These amendments are another lurch backwards to undesirable habits of secretive and unaccountable governance.
The Freedom of Information Act was supposed to give the public and the media access to documents held by the government, but it does not seem to be working out that way. Whilst I appreciate the minister’s response to the concerns raised by the scrutiny of bills committee, any changes that were made by the amendments that came as a result of that were very cosmetic, quite tiny and did not get to the basic issues which I wanted to talk about in that speech which I was not allowed to give. What we have here is a travesty of our freedom of information legislation which I am quite sure that this government will regret when it is in opposition and it wishes to look at documents, just as this opposition, this cross bench and the public have a right to do but which the government is closing down with these conclusive certificates.
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Attorney-General, Minister for Police and Emergency Services and Minister for Planning) (10.46): Mr Speaker, the government does not accept Dr Foskey’s critique of these amendments. In fact, anyone would think, based on Dr Foskey’s comments, that the government was seeking to prohibit freedom of information access. The facts simply are otherwise.
In the overwhelming majority of cases, freedom of information requests in this territory are processed in a timely manner and in a manner which provides, in most cases, the complete grant of all documents requested by people seeking access. That is the reality of day-to-day practice. There are always instances where there is dispute about which documents should and should not be released, and there has been a range of assertions around that. For example, some members of this place have sought access to cabinet documents and have used the media to advance their case when cabinet documents have been, quite properly and quite legitimately, withheld. It has
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