The Advocate: Tasmania: Thursday,
03 December 2020.
The Tasmanian Government and Opposition have again clashed in Parliament over Right to Information procedures.
In Question Time in the House of Assembly, Labor member for Lyons Jen Butler asked Building and Construction Minister Elise Archer about her role in discussing RTI applications.
"At last week's Estimates hearings, you were adamant that you had no role in meetings with departmental representatives to discuss right to information applications. You said 'I am not present at those meetings when they are discussing the processing of them'.
"Can you explain why this document, which is the March 2020 agenda for a regular fortnightly meeting you hold with your Building and Construction bureaucrats in your ministerial office, contains a thorough run-down of RTI applications which includes the names of applicants, a description of the information they are seeking and the status of their applications, clearly showing if they are new or finalised?"
Ms Archer said she did not resile from her answer.
"As I explained to the member then, quite often the right to information requests come straight to my inbox and are referred through to the department," Ms Archer said.
"As the leader of the Greens has quite appropriately said, it is quite often an agenda item that ministers be advised about the existence of RTIs, but that does not mean we are involved in the process and I absolutely refute that allegation.
"I am not involved whatsoever in the processing of RTI applications.
"They are processed at arm's length from ministers and just because RTI requests appear on an agenda item of a regular weekly meeting of my department means absolutely nothing other than following correct protocol and procedure of advising the minister of their existence."
Later Ms Archer said Ms Butler was desperate for a "gotcha moment" in Parliament but had demonstrated her "complete ignorance of standard departmental practices with respect to Right to Information requests and processing"
The Tasmanian Government and Opposition have again clashed in Parliament over Right to Information procedures.
In Question Time in the House of Assembly, Labor member for Lyons Jen Butler asked Building and Construction Minister Elise Archer about her role in discussing RTI applications.
"At last week's Estimates hearings, you were adamant that you had no role in meetings with departmental representatives to discuss right to information applications. You said 'I am not present at those meetings when they are discussing the processing of them'.
"Can you explain why this document, which is the March 2020 agenda for a regular fortnightly meeting you hold with your Building and Construction bureaucrats in your ministerial office, contains a thorough run-down of RTI applications which includes the names of applicants, a description of the information they are seeking and the status of their applications, clearly showing if they are new or finalised?"
Ms Archer said she did not resile from her answer.
"As I explained to the member then, quite often the right to information requests come straight to my inbox and are referred through to the department," Ms Archer said.
"As the leader of the Greens has quite appropriately said, it is quite often an agenda item that ministers be advised about the existence of RTIs, but that does not mean we are involved in the process and I absolutely refute that allegation.
"I am not involved whatsoever in the processing of RTI applications.
"They are processed at arm's length from ministers and just because RTI requests appear on an agenda item of a regular weekly meeting of my department means absolutely nothing other than following correct protocol and procedure of advising the minister of their existence."
Later Ms Archer said Ms Butler was desperate for a "gotcha moment" in Parliament but had demonstrated her "complete ignorance of standard departmental practices with respect to Right to Information requests and processing"
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