The Mandarin: Tasmania: Tuesday, November 28, 2017.
The Northern
Territory public servants don’t receive that many applications for the release
of government information, but when they do, they reject more than their
counterparts in any other government.
Queensland
and Tasmania are not far behind in terms of blocking access, according to new
national statistics on the use of Freedom of Information schemes (or Right to
Information in Qld and Tasmania) for each government except the ACT.
When it comes
to speed, a complete national picture isn’t available but it is clearly
Tasmania and the Commonwealth that miss their statutory time frame most often,
and both got worse in 2015-16 compared to 2014-15.
The number
that go to review by an ombudsman or FOI commissioner is fairly low across the
board, but Tasmania clearly sees the most appeals.
In the NT,
access to information was granted in whole or in part only 70% of the time over
2015-16, while 20% of requests were rejected completely.
The preceding
year, NT government agencies released at least some information in response to
67% of requests and rejected 21% entirely.
Tasmanian
agencies granted at least partial access to 82% of applicants in 2014-15, and
77% of applicants the following financial year. They rejected only 12% entirely
in 2014-15, but the figure rose to 17% in 2015-16.
NT agencies
provided less access than any other government across the two financial years
covered, according to the two metrics, except for full refusals in 2014-15,
when Queensland’s RTI officers put the kybosh on 24% of requests.
In that year,
however, the Queenslanders granted some access in 76% of cases. In 2015-16,
they gave out information 81% of the time and totally rejected 19% of requests,
only marginally less than in the NT.
The first set
of nationwide figures were released this week as one of Australia’s commitments
to the international Open Government Partnership.
Not all FOI
requests can be granted of course, and not all rejections demonstrate excessive
secrecy, but it does appear that sometimes FOI officers see their job as
invoking the maximum number of exemptions to minimise how much information is
released, as a matter of course, even if there is no sensitivity. To
applicants, some parts of the process can often seem like a waste of everyone’s
time or even deliberate obstruction to prevent embarrassment.
The Tasmanian
government has come under fire from all sides in state parliament recently, and
the head of the Department of Treasury was forced to defend his agency’s RTI
practices after a snafu involving the ABC.
The ABC
reports a senior officer from the department said that was routine practice,
but secretary Tony Ferrall said the incident was the result of accident rather
than design.
Western
Australians and South Australians made the most formal applications in both
years, closely followed by Victorians made almost as many.
The relevant
ombudsman or information commissioner in each state and territory co-signed a
statement accompanying the data release.
“The right to
access information is a fundamental tenet of Open Government.
“The
dashboard of metrics on public use of FOI access laws is a first for Australia.
The dashboard reflects the currently available data that is reasonably
comparable across jurisdictions and the priority in Australia’s first Open
Government National Action Plan to promote the importance of better measuring
and improving our understanding of the public’s use of rights under freedom of
information laws.
“We encourage
the community to use the dashboard to better understand how FOI laws can be
used to ensure government is releasing and providing access to more information
to build public trust and promote an effective and contemporary model of Open
Government that is fair, accountable and transparent.”
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