Page 3318 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 14 November 2007
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mechanisms of this house, by freedom of information, to obtain what should be a public document. Until now, the government has hidden behind a range of ruses and said, “We can’t release it because it is cabinet-in-confidence.” Making something a cabinet-in-confidence document does not mean it must be kept secret. At any time the minister can say, “Even though this is a cabinet-in-confidence document, I am releasing it to the public.” This legislation makes provision for the people of the ACT to see the reason behind the draconian cuts in the 2006 budget by releasing the Costello report.
The rest of the legislation is about making the administrative processes better and clearer. Part 1.2 of the schedule amends the Administrative Appeals Tribunal Act 1989 by inserting a new section 32 (1A) which requires a respondent, in a review of a decision, to take all reasonable steps to assist the tribunal in making its decisions. This provision almost exactly mirrors the provisions in the relatively new section 33 (1AA) of the commonwealth Administrative Appeals Tribunal Act. This is a simple change that makes sure that public servants are just that—that they serve the public and that, when they go to a review of a decision they have made, they assist the decision maker in coming to a conclusion about whether that original decision was a well-made one and that they do not find means of obfuscating.
The real meat on the bones is contained in part 1.3 of the schedule. These are amendments to the Freedom of Information Act 1989 which remove the power of ministers to issue conclusive certificates under sections 35 and 36 of that act. That is in relation to cabinet documents and internal working documents. I considered removing certificates that relate to national or commonwealth-state relations but decided not to at this stage.
This is something that needs to be discussed at COAG level. Some of the documents that would come under those exemptions relating to national security and commonwealth-state relations may not be documents of this territory but documents that have come into possession of the territory, and it would be perhaps inappropriate for someone to use a loophole to get to those documents which otherwise may not be released. Matters in relation to national security and commonwealth-state relations need to be discussed at a national level and they need to be discussed at COAG.
It is interesting that the current Leader of the Opposition has made commitments to remove all conclusive certificates from the commonwealth freedom of information legislation, and this has not been ruled out by the commonwealth government. I would ask the current attorney in this place to take a leaf out of his national leader’s book and follow him down the path of doing something about conclusive certificates.
Part 1.4 of the schedule removes the power of the minister to issue conclusive certificates under section 35 and part 1.5 removes the power of the minister to issue certificates under section 36. The subsequent parts, 1.6 to 1.23, are consequential amendments that remove further references to certificates issued under sections 35 and 36 of the act.
As I said, these laws begin the process that the Stanhope government said it would introduce when it came to power in 2001. It said it would open the windows and let
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