Today's hearing into Labor's FOI Bill is demonstrating that the Bill is both friendless and irredeemable.
All non-Government stakeholders have rejected it including civil society and transparency advocates as well as anyone who has ever tried to do an FOI for government information. The Bill does not fix what is broken in the FOI system. Instead it entrenches the problems by expanding Cabinet confidentiality, introducing processing caps, and removing anonymous requests.
The real problems with FOI are simple and well-documented, and none are fixed with this Bill:
- Cabinet confidentiality enabled Robodebt to flourish unchecked. The final report from Commissioner Catherine Holmes recommended repealing Section 34. The Bill expands it instead.
- FOI processing is both underfunded and slow. The OAIC overseeing this is chronically under-resourced and has 967 reviews outstanding for over 16 months. Home Affairs is the worst offender and finalises only 35% of requests on time. This reflects a culture of non-disclosure, not too many requests.
- Government ministers interfere in FOI determinations, delaying and blocking legitimate access.
Greens Senator and Justice Spokesperson David Shoebridge said: "If Labor is serious about reform, they need to listen to what every credible voice has told them: this bill doesn't work and it can't be fixed.
"Robodebt happened because governments could hide their actions and the Greens will use our numbers in the Senate to stop that happening again.
"We need to fix the laws that make FOI slow, expensive and restrictive, which means resourcing FOI properly and challenging the increasing culture of secrecy driven by Prime Minister Albanese.
"Democracy dies unless citizens can find out what their government is doing and we have governments that trust their community with the truth.
"This bill is dead in the water and every stakeholder has said so. Rather than defend it, Labor should reflect on what's gone wrong and work with the Parliament to chart a positive path from here.
