Page 3317 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 14 November 2007
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adviser. I think I have a fair track record, going back to 1982, of experience with the Freedom of Information Act. As a result of that, we are seeing today what I would say are the first steps of reform of administrative law in relation to people’s access to information.
The Government Transparency Legislation Amendment Bill does four things. It amends the Financial Management Act to make provisions for the publication of the report of the strategic and functional review of the ACT public sector and services. It highlights the responsibility of respondents in a freedom of information matter to assist the Administrative Appeals Tribunal in reviewing the material in question. It removes most of the circumstances where a minister can issue a certificate under the Freedom of Information Act, and it increases the status and applicability of the model litigant guidelines.
The Stanhope government was elected in 2001 on a platform of reform of the Freedom of Information Act, but it has not done so. The only reforms of the Freedom of Information Act that I have been aware of are those which were introduced recently by the attorney and which in fact made it easier to issue conclusive certificates, not harder.
Going through the provisions of this bill, clauses 1 to 3 are the usual mechanical provisions and clause 4 sets out the purpose. The purpose of this bill is to improve transparency and accountability in the exercise and functions of the ACT territory executive by ensuring that decision makers take all reasonable steps to assist the proceedings in the administrative review of decisions, promoting freedom of information by limiting the ability of ministers to issue conclusive certificates and establishing a statutory basis for the model litigant guidelines.
The bones, the guts, of the legislation are contained in the schedule of consequential amendments. The consequential amendments amend the Financial Management Act by inserting a new part 9A which relates to the report of the strategic and functional review of the ACT public sector and services, sometimes referred to as the functional review or the Costello report.
Part 1.1 of the schedule creates a new section 126 of the Financial Management Act which defines and describes the functional review as the report of the strategic and functional review of the ACT public sector and services. To remove any doubt about the identity of the document, the explanatory memorandum will include a copy of the conclusive certificate issued over this document by the Chief Executive of the Chief Minister’s Department on 5 September 2006.
New clause 127 of the Financial Management Act requires that, three weeks after the commencement of this law, the responsible minister must publish, both electronically and in printed form, the functional review and make it available for purchase or inspection. New clause 128 of the FMA makes it clear that the Freedom of Information Act would not provide exemptions to the release of the Costello report once this law is passed.
The 2006 budget was premised on the information contained in the Costello report of the functional review, and there have been numerous attempts through the
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