Page 2792 - Week 08 - Thursday, 11 August 2016
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MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (4.23): The Canberra Liberals will be supporting this amendment, but this is a provision that needs to be watched. The advice that the Canberra Liberals received in briefing was that there is the possibility that the information obtained in a search of a backup could be a how-to for hackers and that the backup material needs to be kept safe. On the basis of that advice, I am prepared, again, to act conservatively and to support Mr Corbell’s amendment on this occasion.
MR RATTENBURY (Molonglo) (4.24): The Greens’ view on this is that both the bill and the current act indicate that this is not an onerous requirement. All the bill says is that an agency is considered to have complied with a request if it provides a transcript. It does not say that it has to generate one. This option exists in the current FOI, so this is actually not a change.
Mrs Dunne: Shane, that is 28; we are on 22.
MR RATTENBURY: Yes. Sorry, we are doing 22 and 28 together, aren’t we?
Mrs Dunne: No, we are not.
MADAM ASSISTANT SPEAKER: Amendment 22.
MR RATTENBURY: I will finish my remarks anyway, and then I will not have to say them again. This option, we think, is a bit of a step backwards.
In terms of the rest of it, I will leave it to the house and catch up with where I am up to.
Amendment agreed to.
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) (4.25): I move amendment No 28 circulated in my name [see schedule 2 at page 2854]. This deals with processing applications.
Government amendment 28 omits clause 47(1)(c) of the bill. This removes the requirement to prepare a transcript of sound recordings or to provide a transcript where words are in shorthand writing or in a codified form. The obligation in clause 47(1)(c) of the bill would have significant impacts on the public service and is an obligation which significantly departs from the current act. This clause would require the public service to create documents or transcripts. Obtaining or creating transcripts will be costly and may not be possible within the statutory time frames.
In removing this requirement it will still be possible under clause 47(1)(a) to give the applicant an electronic copy of the recording. This may practically occur through providing the sound recording in an email, thumb drive or having the applicant listen to a recording.
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