Page 2798 - Week 08 - Thursday, 11 August 2016
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(Restorative Justice) Act. These acts are specifically excluded clause by clause in the bill under schedule 1. However the schedule is more streamlined and cohesive if all protected information related to a secrecy provision is contained in the one section.
I will not go through the more detailed rationale for these changes as I understand there is support for them.
MR RATTENBURY (Molonglo) (4.45): As previously discussed, the Greens do not support the wholesale exclusion of secrecy provisions. The bill currently lists the information that we can reasonably expect will always be contrary to the public interest. Both the Queensland and New South Wales schemes do not have a general wholesale exemption for secrecy provisions, and there is no reason to have one in the ACT.
A better approach is for us to identify the particular information that will always be contrary to the public interest for release under the scheme, such as care and protection information or any other specific information listed in schedule 1. That any information that officials are prevented from unilaterally disclosing will always be contrary to the public interest to release under the heavily regulated framework of the FOI scheme, we believe, is contrary to the intent of what we are trying to achieve here. I do hope this is an area we can revisit over time and we do not arbitrarily deny Canberrans access to information that may well be in the public interest for them to have.
Amendments 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) (4.46): I move amendment 72 circulated in my name [see schedule 2 at page 2854].
This amendment is consequential to amendment 51 regarding sensitive personal information. It includes a new definition of “sensitive information” in the bill as a category of information, disclosure of which is taken to be contrary to the public interest. The definition of “sensitive information” is taken from section 14 of the Information Privacy Act 2014.
Amendment agreed to.
MR RATTENBURY (Molonglo) (4.47): I move amendment No 2 circulated in my name [see schedule 1 at page 2853].
The amendment deals with cabinet information. Cabinet information is the most significant issue in any FOI bill because all of the most controversial information and the information that is most often contested and for which there will often be either the strongest public interest in release or confidentiality goes to cabinet. As with all government information, the bill will only mandate the release of the information when it is in the public interest to release it. For information to be released, the agency, the Ombudsman or ACAT has to be convinced that it is not contrary to the public interest to release the information. To that extent, the potential for misuse is limited.
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