International Law

Relatively happy but busy Information Commissioner in the West

Posted on December 17, 2009
Western Australian Information Commissioner Sven Bluemmel in the Annual Report 2008-2009 details brisk Freedom of Information business, with 180 applications to his office for external review in the year to June 2009 up from 103 in the previous year...

What ever happened to...

Posted on December 16, 2009
In case you were wondering, as the country goes into wind down to the festive season and before summer torpor takes complete hold:The NSW Information CommissionerApplications for the advertised job to lead NSW into a new era, with a new open government act closed on 28 September...

Victorian Police and personal information

Posted on December 13, 2009
Do they, don't they, will they, won't they? What goes Mark 2,3...The Age editorial today wonders about Victoria Police practices, agreements to hand over a wide range of information to private corporations about people involved in protests, the privacy concerns, whether a list of those agreements will be made public, and possible political pressure being exerted on the Commissioner on this issue...

Gov 2.0 Draft Report needs to toughen up.

Posted on December 13, 2009
The following are comments I've offered on the Draft Report of the Gov 2.0 Task Force, which contains many worthy and commendable suggestions:"You need to toughen this draft up in the light of close to 30 years of experience since the last attempt at open government principles through the Freedom of Information Act...

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Born 00/00/1988-what's not correct about that?

Posted on December 10, 2009
On the topic of self represented litigants, you like to see a winner like 18 year old Majur Sufara Ndonya, born in Sudan and a settled refugee in Australia after years in a camp in Kenya, who took the Minister for Immigration to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal after the Department refused his Freedom of Information application to amend records of his name and birthdate which he claimed were incorrectly recorded...

Costly wrong call on privacy law

Posted on December 10, 2009
The self represented (the norm in Freedom of Information and privacy cases) often face a challenge in pressing the right legal button and don't get much help when they miss. The law itself is complex and confusing enough. Judges (usually) stick strictly to what is argued before them, nothing else...

Obama directive to agencies: "open up".. like this!

Posted on December 09, 2009
While we mull over the draft report from the Federal Government's Gov 2.0 Task Force before submissions close next Wednesday, President Obama has upped the ante on open government, issuing this Directive to all US Federal agencies. A few highlights.Each agency is to:Publish before the end of January at least three collections of "high value" government data on the Internet that never have been previously disclosed...

Police and personal information-what goes?

Posted on December 09, 2009
The Victorian Police practice of agreeing to hand over personal information to private sector organisations undertaking major infrastructure projects, in the name of public safety, has been under the hammer all week since Paul Austin in The Age broke the story on Saturday about an agreement with AquaSure, the private consortium building Victoria's desal plant...

NSW report on whistleblowers not as good as it sounds

Posted on December 07, 2009
On what to make of the NSW Parliamentary Committee Report on whistleblower protection, a few observations from Dr Peter Bowden who I first met about 25 years ago when he was responsible for managing development programs for senior public servants for the Australian Public Service, and I was a humble consultant trying to improve policy development skills for program participants...

Gruen says "what do you think so far?"

Posted on December 07, 2009
The Federal Government's Gov 2.0 Task Force with Nicholas Gruen in the chair has not been your usual run of the mill exercise with blogging, competitions, and mashups following release of its discussion paper on issues relevant to promoting government openness and public engagement...

NSW whistleblower protection law and practice in need of comprehensive overhaul

Posted on December 06, 2009
When the Parliamentary Joint Committee on the Independent Commission Against Corruption in June 2008 was asked to inquire into and report on the effectiveness of current NSW laws, practices and procedures in protecting whistleblower employees, it ran into a problem: despite the fact that the Protected Disclosures Act had been in operation for 15 years , no central government agency had owned or supported the Act...

Federal Government still interested in examining private sector disclosure rules

Posted on December 06, 2009
Thanks to the alert reader who noticed in the fine print of the Second Reading Speech on the Freedom of Information Amendment (Reform) Bill, confirmation that the Government intends to go ahead with a reference to the Australian Law Reform Commission on private sector disclosures...

FOI reforms that work in practice central to winning trust

Posted on December 03, 2009
It gets a mention in the small print of some of the analysis (here in The Australian) of the brief but troubled premiership of Nathan Rees, deposed as NSW Premier yesterday, but as acknowledged here in June, a hat tip to Rees for picking up the ball from Ombudsman Bruce Barbour and pushing major Freedom of Information legislative reform through the Parliament...

Dr Haneef battles tough law and some weak arguments

Posted on December 03, 2009
Dr Mohamed Haneef (Associated Press)This report in The Australian this week alerted me to an Administrative Appeals Tribunal Freedom of Information decision in October involving Dr Haneef (Australian and Indian readers know who I mean) that I missed at the time...

Victorian lobbyists up in lights, NSW could do better

Posted on December 01, 2009
As reported in The Age the Victorian Government's Register of Lobbyists is up and running, with an initial batch of 21 lobbyists, and details searchable, in line with most other states that have taken the plunge. The name of an individual lobbyist employed by a registered firm, or an organisation represented by a lobbyist can easily be ascertained...

More than politics happening in Canberra

Posted on November 30, 2009
No legislative history available but the Information Commissioner Bill and the Freedom of Information Amendment (Reform) Bill both introduced into the House of Representatives last Thursday are now before the Senate Finance and Public Administration Committee for inquiry and report by 16 March 2010...

Pluses mostly, and room for debate on proposed changes to FOI charges

Posted on November 29, 2009
As part of the reform initiative, the Federal Government has released the Freedom of Information (Fees and Charges) Amendment Regulations 2009 Exposure Draft for public comment ( by 11 January). The summary: no application fees (including for internal review) will apply to access requests; no charges will apply to applicants seeking access to their own personal information under the FOI Act; for all other applications, the first hour of decision-making time will be free (except for journalists and not-for-profit community groups where the first five hours of decision making time will be free); and applications not decided within the statutory time frame will be processed free of charge...

FOI on The National Interest

Posted on November 27, 2009
I am interviewed about the new Federal Freedom of Information legislation on ABC Radio National's The National Interest-the program will be rebroadcast at 12 noon AEDT on 576 AM on Sunday, or you can listen or download.

SA District Court finds Ombudsman erred on privilege law

Posted on November 26, 2009
One of the issues mentioned in the recent post about Freedom of Information issues in the South Australian Ombudsman's Annual Report has been the subject of a decision by Judge Herriman of the District Court in Legal Practitioners Conduct Board v Wharff [2009] SADC 126, an appeal against findings arising from an investigation by the Acting Ombudsman of a complaint about refusal of access to documents...

FOI Reform speeches

Posted on November 26, 2009
The Second Reading speeches by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister in the House of Representatives yesterday ( links here) on the Freedom of Information Amendment (Reform) Bill 2009 and the Information Commissioner Bill 2009 are, understandably, universally positive about the proposals...

FOI features in journalism's Walkleys

Posted on November 26, 2009
Michael McKinnonCongratulations to the Walkley Award winners, particularly Gary Hughes of The Australian, who took the Gold for his very personal and highly professional reports of the Black Saturday bushfires. Special mention of Michael McKinnon, FOI Editor of Seven Network, who received the award for Journalism Leadership for his 20 year involvement in Freedom of Information, and was one of the Seven News team who won the All Media Investigative Journalism award for reports on police corruption...

FOI Reform Bill on Parliament's table just in the nick of time

Posted on November 26, 2009
Good as its word - to do this in 2009 (says he eating humble pie having proclaimed on Monday it wouldn't happen) - the Government introduced into Parliament today- the day the House of Representatives is scheduled to rise for the year- the Freedom of Information Reform Bill and related legislation...

The Federal Crimes Act and Allan Kessing

Posted on November 24, 2009
Don't miss Allan Kessing tonight in the second program in the Law and Disorder series on SBS television at 8.30 PM (AEDT) , even if you are familiar with the story. It's likely to be uncomfortable but compelling viewing about Kessing's conviction for breach of Section 70 of the Crimes Act following a leak which brought to attention information about a matter of grave national significance...

FOI Reform statement-details to come...Update:legislation tomorrow

Posted on November 24, 2009
We know this last week of Parliament for the year is a stretch for all concerned, but Special Minister of State Senator Joe Ludwig managed to have a statement tabled yesterday on reforms to freedom of information policy. While the Hansard records this fact, it doesn't include the statement, and so far (12:30 PM the next day) no sign of it on the Minister's website or the Government's Freedom of Information Reform website...

Victorian Tribunal equates public service advice with legal advice

Posted on November 24, 2009
On several occasions the approach taken in some Victorian court and Tribunal decisions when applying public interest considerations in Freedom of Information exemptions, particularly in respect to internal working documents, has been the subject of comment here, this post for example...

Despite the talk, F for Fail on Federal FOI Reform by the end of 2009 (but see correction)

Posted on November 23, 2009
The Prime Minister in his Garran Oration at the Australian Institute of Public Administration National Conference in Brisbane on Friday gave the Australian Public Service a "good but needs to do better assessment," citing the just released KPMG Benchmarking Report as evidence of areas of good and not so good performance...

Climate change hack has an FOI angle

Posted on November 22, 2009
The publication of email exchanges between scientists following a cyberattack on researchers at the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, England suggest attempts to skew the debate about aspects of the climate change debate, but also reveal attempts to keep unhelpful information from Freedom of Information requests in various parts of the world...

NSW Committee proposes changes for lobbyists and political donations

Posted on November 22, 2009
A NSW Parliamentary Committee inquiring into land dealings and planning decisions released an interim report that recommends Government action on lobbyists and political donations. Some of the proposals regarding lobbyists, for example a ban on lobbying for a period after separation from government would bring NSW into line with other jurisdictions: the Committee recommmends (Recommendation 10) NSW review other Australian Lobbyist Codes of Conduct and report to Parliament on improvements...

Senate looking to muscle-up on refusal to answer

Posted on November 22, 2009
The recent debate in the Senate about commercial in confidence claims as reasons for refusal to provide information in response to questions led to this Senate Finance and Public Administration Committee inquiry into a process for determining public interest immunity claims...

Parliamentarians interests officially online-soon-maybe

Posted on November 20, 2009
The House of Representatives Standing Committee on Privileges and Members' Interests is warming to the idea of online publication of details of interests in the next parliament. In a report Publication of details of Members' Interests on the Australian Parliament House website released yesterday, the Committee suggests how this could be done efficiently while preserving the integrity of the data and protecting wide dissemination of signatures, thought to be one area of concern...

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