General Press Release No. 253 (November 2002)

Freedom of Information Laws

Australian governments must reinforce their commitment to openness by improving the effectiveness of Freedom of Information (FoI) laws, according to the Australian Press Council.

Releasing details of a study into the operation of Australian FoI laws to federal, state and territory Attorneys-General and other interested parties, the Press Council called for a clearer commitment on the part of all governments to making more accessible to the public information they hold. This includes putting more resources into dealing with FoI requests.

The right to seek information is an express right of the public under international civil and political rights covenants to which Australia is a signatory. But, the Council said, journalists were finding that their attempts to seek information were being thwarted in many ways.

The Press Council has called on the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General to take a uniform approach on improving public access to government information.

A primary concern with the administration of FoI laws is that there is a significant under-resourcing of FoI administrators. The Council calls on governments to ensure that those charged with meeting requests for the release of information be adequately resourced to meet all reasonable requests.

To counter the obstructionism encountered by many journalists in the FoI process, the Council urges two significant changes to FoI procedures:

• the introduction of penalties for department and FoI officers who fail to comply with the time-frame provisions of FoI legislation; and
   
• giving FoI applicants the ability to claim their costs if they are successful in the administrative appeals process.

These changes would help address the main concerns about FoI identified in a study commissioned by the Press Council.

The study found:

• many FoI requests were obstructed on the grounds that meeting them would "substantially or unreasonably" divert resources;
   
• time delays discouraged FoI requests;
   
• 'user-pays' principles often made the cost of seeking information prohibitive;
   
• the operation of exemption provisions greatly reduced information made available; and
   
• arbitrary decisions on classification of documents by FoI officers often stopped requests in their tracks.

While acknowledging that FoI laws were not intended for use solely by journalists, the Press Council expressed concern that journalists who are the link between the public and the public's right to know were often frustrated in attempts to get information that properly should be made public.

The principles of FoI should be honoured more enthusiastically by government, the Council said.

Its survey of editors and journalists concluded that processes should be developed within government to assist the media identify documents held and that there should be a higher level of routine disclosure of government information. In that way FoI would become more beneficial for journalists and the public they serve.

At the same time as it is making this call on government, the Council is recommending to the print media actions they might take to clean up their own house in relation to FoI. Such actions should include reduction in the number of 'ambit' FoI requests and a better fine-tuning of requests. There should also be more training for journalists in the 'proper' use of FoI requests. The Council itself is developing some best practice FoI standards for distribution to the print media to assist it in this area.

The Press Council survey was prompted by examples of FoI requests that ran off the rails, including:

1. A newspaper was told it would cost more than $1million to process a request for information about overseas travel by Commonwealth MPs not long after the Government had called in auditors to examine such expenditure. In an AAT hearing the government said MPs travel information was regularly tabled in parliament but the newspaper immediately produced the name of one MP whose name did not appear on the tabled list. The government also claimed that people whose names appeared on expenses claims and receipts would have to be consulted because of privacy concerns. The AAT found that the information should be provided but that the government was entitled to seek payment for the costs of doing so.
    
2. Queensland has legislation that exempts cabinet submissions from FoI scrutiny. Thus delicate matters deemed by ministers or officers to require secrecy are rolled into the Cabinet room in order to gain status as "Cabinet papers" and avoid scrutiny.
    
3. Yet another recent FoI debacle involves a request for information about the approval of drugs and medical treatments. The department quoted $3,855 for the information, including 141 hours of "decision-making" at $20 an hour.
    
4. Several weeks after making an FoI request, a journalist was told there would be an unavoidable delay past the statutory period for replies because of backlogs, short-staffing etc ... When the reply arrived, the journalist was told by the FoI officer that only six documents were considered to fit within the "terms of your request". Of these, "access is granted in full to three documents" and "access is denied in full to three documents". The three documents the journalist was allowed to see were all correspondence to ... him, relating to his FoI request.

see also
2001-2002 report on Free Speech issues - FoI issues
GPR on Annual Report 26

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