Page 4456 - Week 14 - Thursday, 28 November 2013
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open—or you can have government.” The ensuing laughter has helped to break the spell of the tradition by revealing its presumption when viewed in the contemporary age with its more democratic values.
After those remarks of Michael Kirby there can be no doubt that the contemporary democratic values and expectations of Canberrans are that government information should be more freely available to the public.
Australian governments have come to over-rely on secrecy when it is entirely unnecessary, often to their own detriment. Patronising government decisions claiming that the public cannot understand or be trusted with government information are an affront to our democracy. Democratic governments should not keep information because of the importance of maintaining confidentiality when there is clearly a greater public interest in the community having access to the information. For far too long, governments have got away with simply being able to assert that they know best and denying the public the opportunity to test the assertion.
There is no shortage of grand political language surrounding FOI. For decades, politicians have been trumpeting the value of FOI and their commitment to open government. James Madison, the US President from 1809 to 1817, said:
A popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy; or, perhaps, both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with power that knowledge gives.
Former Prime Minister Bob Hawke said:
Information about government operations is not, after all, some kind of “favour” to be bestowed by a benevolent government or to be extorted from a reluctant bureaucracy. It is, quite simply, a public right.
Finding leaders who have actually lived up to their fine words is a much more difficult task. In the ACT, the Chief Minister has indicated her desire to improve openness in government, a commitment which has seen a number of important reforms implemented and for which she is to be commended. Nevertheless, there remains much more that can be done. The Greens and Labor agreed, through the parliamentary agreement, to support Greens legislation to make further reform of freedom of information.
This draft bill will put in place a scheme that actually delivers on the promise of open government, making more government information available to the public than ever before. It implements the recommendations of countless reviews by a very large range of experts, and it implements them fully and without caveats and exceptions. It does so in a way that is reasoned, logical and accountable, through a practical and easy to follow scheme. One key criticism of the old-style FOI acts, like our current act, is that they are too complex and difficult to utilise, creating a barrier to the information rather than access to it. The draft bill is far simpler, easier to navigate and much clearer in the way it operates, and it provides Canberrans with a coordinated system for accessing information held by the government.
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