Page 2791 - Week 08 - Thursday, 11 August 2016
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That having been said, we will not be supporting this tranche of amendments because they fundamentally undermine the spirit of the legislation.
MR RATTENBURY (Molonglo) (4.19): The Greens will be opposing these amendments. We believe that every modern FOI scheme has an independent external review mechanism. The commonwealth, Queensland and Victoria have an information commissioner, and South Australia and Tasmania have given the Ombudsman the same role. To suggest replacing Ombudsman review with internal review shows how reluctant the Labor Party is to actually make serious reform in this space.
The success of the various FOI reforms across the country has in large part been driven by the information commissioner or ombudsman. To not include them here would severely curtail the effectiveness of the scheme. In conversations that I and my office have had with the Ombudsman, the Ombudsman has indicated a desire to undertake the role, and I have every confidence that the Ombudsman will acquit the various functions well and will prove to be an effective mechanism to ensure that the bill is applied correctly and the community can access all the information they are entitled to.
Going to a place where it suggests that this will somehow undermine confidence in the public service is, I think, stretching the argument a little. At the moment, we have a situation where there is a common perception that in the public service the initial decision-maker makes a very conservative decision because they know there is an internal review. That is the common perception so confidence in the public service is already undermined on this one.
Putting more responsibility onto a single public service decision-maker will focus better decisions and will produce a situation where that decision will be made. If not, it will go straight to the Ombudsman and there will be an immediate response.
I disagree quite strongly in this case with the views of the scrutiny committee, for the reasons I have outlined. This will not lengthen decision-making; I think it will produce better decisions more frequently and in a more timely manner.
Amendments negatived.
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Deputy Chief Minister, Attorney-General, Minister for Health, Minister for Police and Emergency Services and Minister for the Environment and Climate Change) (4.22): I move amendment No 22 circulated in my name [see schedule 2 at page 2854].
This amendment deals with processing applications. Clause 34 deals with identifying information that is within the scope of an access application. Amendment 22 clarifies that a respondent is not required to search for information from a backup system, but may do this if it is appropriate. Requiring the search of backup information for every access application would be administratively difficult and costly. The purpose of an FOI regime is to provide the public with access to government information. Requiring the government to locate and retrieve information from old backup systems is outside the scope of this purpose and unnecessarily adds to the complexity and cost of the scheme.
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