International Law

Automatic voter enrolment and related issues

Posted on November 19, 2009
The NSW Government's move to legislate for automatic voter enrolment not only attracted the attention of those at the Australian Privacy Foundation's Big Brother Awards, but Stephen Murray in New Matilda, Ben Eltham and Miriam Lyons in the Sydney Morning Herald, William Bowe at The Poll Bludger and others have all added useful and sometimes differing perspectives...

Big Brother 2009

Posted on November 19, 2009
If you haven't seen them, The Australian Privacy Foundation Big Brother Awards returned this month after a couple of years break. Now these results emerged from the combined wisdom of those who showed up at functions in Sydney and Canberra on the night...

Victorian FOI reform still a long way off

Posted on November 19, 2009
Victorian Opposition Leader Ted Baillieu announced yesterday plans to overhaul Freedom of Information if elected at next year's state election, with more proactive disclosure, an FOI Commissioner to be appointed to oversight and lead on standards and to undertake what is now internal review, etc...

FOI and two Ombudsman

Posted on November 18, 2009
Annual reports released recently by the Commonwealth and South Australian Ombudsman both include information about Freedom of Information matters. Review of FOI complaints is part of a broad range of Ombudsman responsibilities. However as the reports reveal, FOI looms larger in the workload in SA...

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Boo, hiss....

Posted on November 18, 2009
From the newsletter of Sydney's terrific Gleebooks, a note from the historian and archivist Baiba Berzins:"The National Archives of Australia has announced that it will be closing its regional offices in Darwin (in 2010), Adelaide (2011) and Hobart (repository 2010 and reading room 2012)...

Tasmania FOI envy- in Michigan

Posted on November 17, 2009
We all have all heard stories about large Freedom of Information bills, but thanks to Rick Snell for this report of a $7 million charge by the Michigan Department of State Police for an FOI application by the Mackinak Centre for Public Policy. Just in passing, the Tasmanian Right to Information Act to commence on 1 July 2010 is an Australian first: no provision for processing charges, only an application fee.

Statutory legal professional privilege

Posted on November 17, 2009
A Queensland reader (thanks) has pointed out that the question of legal professional privilege for communication with NSW Parliamentary Counsel in the drafting of legislation-one of the issues in the Betfair/Sportsbet discovery litigation- wouldn't arise there because statutory legal professional privilege is conferred by Section 9A of the Legislative Standards Act:9A Application of legal professional privilege to office(1) This section applies to communications made in or for the performance of the office?s functions under section 7(a) to (i) or a function incidental to those functions...

Not much Gov 2.0 detail in Tasmania's RTI Exposure Draft

Posted on October 01, 2009
Submissions closed today on the Tasmanian Exposure Draft Right to Information Bill 2009, to replace the Freedom of Information Act, and the Personal Information Protection Amendment Bill 2009. I didn't manage a submission, but make these couple of comments...

Talking up RTI in Queensland

Posted on September 30, 2009
Speeches this week by David Solomon and Queensland Information Commissioner Julie Kinross on separate occasions in Brisbane are both of interest. They cover some common and different ground, with Kinross providing record managers with some historical context for Freedom of Information reform, and explaining the broad scope of change underway as a result of the Right to Information Act 2009 (RTI) across many parts of agencies that demand the attention and leadership from the executive level...

Transparency and school performance

Posted on September 28, 2009
Associate Professor Tony Taylor of Monash University in Crikey today on why we need more accessible information about school performance, and three spot-on suggestions about what can be done to combat silly sensationalism from some champions of the right to know (you know who they are):"First, the authorities must publish reports that give accessible, clear and authentic information that paints a fair, a detailed and a broad picture, and Barry McGaw, the federal curriculum head honcho, has promised this...

Something's gotta give.

Posted on September 28, 2009
In a comment on a post last week, an anonymous reader who claims to have worked in media relations in the Keating, Howard and Rudd governments said he had never witnessed anything in his professional life like the present government with its "paranoia and centralised control of media management...

Integity and accountability paper sparks ideas

Posted on September 28, 2009
There were 114 submissions in response to the Queensland Green paper on Integrity and Accountability with many urging parliamentary reform, including for Australia's only unicameral state system, an upper house of parliament. (The 17500 word submission from the Clerk of the Parliament makes the news in the Courier Mail this morning)The Information Commissioner made some suggestions including specific transparency and accountability measures that would be applicable in other jurisdictions as well...

Queensland marks Right to Know Day

Posted on September 27, 2009
Tomorrow 28 September is International Right to Know Day in some parts of the world, and usually passes largely unnoticed in this neck of the woods, so congratulations to the Queensland Information Commissioner for organising in the morning the first Solomon Right to Information breakfast featuring Dr Solomon, chair of the FOI Review panel that got things moving there, on the Right to Information Act " How we will know when we've succeeded...

"Interesting' Ombudsman report-a serious understatement.

Posted on September 24, 2009
Following on from the previous post, and thanks to James King for the comment and lead, those seriously interested in Freedom of Information processes will find the NSW Ombudsman's 120 page report on the handling by the Office of the Board of Studies (OBOS) of FOI applications for HSC results and related documents, posted here not just interesting but instructive, and...

Queensland whistleblower reform

Posted on September 24, 2009
Haven't seen Dr AJ Brown's report but Chris Merritt's story in The Australian about what's on the table in Queensland for reform of whistleblower protections sounds good and positive.

NSW Board of Studies fails FOI test

Posted on September 23, 2009
The NSW Ombudsman's report of an investigation into the Board of Studies and scaled exam results sounds interesting, but given confidentiality limitations on the Ombudsman the report itself will only come into the public domain if the complainant or the Sydney Morning Herald posts the text somewhere...

Struggling with "communicative abundance" and "monitory democracy"?

Posted on September 23, 2009
Professor Jonathon Keane of the University of Westminster, an Adelaide boy still at heart, has been in Australia speaking about his almost 1000 page book "The Life and Death of Democracy." If you haven't caught up with this- the text of an occassional address at the Senate a few weeks ago will give you the gist of what he is on about with "communicative abundance" and "monitory democracy...

Important privacy conference next month

Posted on September 22, 2009
The International Association of Privacy Professionals Australia and New Zealand?s second annual conference ? Privacy Proofing Your Organisation- will be held in Melbourne on 14 October. Featured speaker is Mozelle Thompson, former US Federal Trade Commissioner, and corporate privacy advisor, on social media and privacy in the 21st century...

Defence Minister opens up

Posted on September 22, 2009
Minister for Defence Senator Faulkner stepped in to overrule his department by releasing two paragraphs from the Executive Summary of a consultant's report on the Defence Budget Audit, and to post the Summary of the Budget Audit Report with two small deletions on the Defence website...

VCAT ruling on when a document is more than information

Posted on September 21, 2009
www.win.org.ukAustralian Freedom of Information acts for the most part, are acts that provide a right of access to "documents", not information. The NSW Government Information (Public Access) Act to replace the FOI Act early in 2010 will be different, providing for access to information - more about that in a final comment...

The Tele on parents (or the Tele's) right to know.

Posted on September 21, 2009
Sydney's Sunday Telegraph took aim yesterday at the NSW Government, asserting parents' right to know details of who is on the s-x offenders register and to access comparative information about school performance. I'm with them on the latter, and on information about how many names are on the register, as any claim that this can't be released for privacy reasons is more than a stretch...

Conclusive certificates... gone

Posted on September 16, 2009
The Freedom of Information (Abolition of Conclusive Certificates and Other Measures) Bill passed the final stages in the House of Representatives yesterday, so congratulations to the Federal Government on delivery of Stage One of the promised reforms...

Tassie goes for Right to Information

Posted on September 16, 2009
The Tasmanian Government has released the Exposure Draft of the proposed Right to Information Bill, which sounds close to the Queensland and NSW models. Deputy Premier and Attorney General Lara Giddings calls for feedback on the Bill which proposes to replace the current Freedom of Information Act ; mandates greater proactive release of information by Government; spells out the factors to be considered when applying the overarching public interest test; creates clear timelines for processing applications, if the information is not already available; and increases the powers of the Ombudsman for external review and monitoring...

FOI in Victoria- first the bad, then some good news.

Posted on September 16, 2009
The Victorian Ombudsman in his Annual Report released yesterday (Chapter 2 pages 38-49) says complaints to his Office about Freedom of Information matters were up from 125 to 178; and reports on avoidable errors in processing requests, backlogs becoming increasingly common, and problems with the consultation process...

Perils of "Pauline", privacy, and old photos of someone

Posted on September 15, 2009
Mark Day in The Australian yesterday gave Crikey a serve, and the comment thread provides a range of views. Day's final point was:"Crikey reported that it had taken upon itself to lodge an official complaint to the Australian Press Council about The Sunday Telegraph?s use of fake Pauline Hanson pictures last March...

AAT decision a primer on cases relevant to some exemptions.

Posted on September 15, 2009
The decision of Senior Member Friedman in Maksimovic and Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions[2009] AATA 700 involved a number of Freedom of Information applications and many documents. The decision upheld all the agency exemption claims for documents that had not been released...

Conclusive certificates-still going..

Posted on September 14, 2009
Edging closer-still not quite there. Debate on the Federal Freedom of Information (Removal of Conclusive Certificates and Other Measures) Bill 2008 got underway for half an hour in the House of Representatives last night, but was interrupted before the Bill passed...

Commissioner endorses right to know, before final decisions.

Posted on September 14, 2009
In Re City of Subiaco and Subiaco Regional Development Authority [2009] WAICmr 23 the WA Information Commissioner strongly endorsed the public interest in the community being in a position to know what was going on, in matters of community significance, even though final decisions by the agency had not been taken...

Searchability an issue in shift to proactive publication

Posted on September 13, 2009
Steven Bartos of The Allen Consulting Group writing in the Canberra Times on 1 September (no link available) on an issue raised here several times concerning the shift to proactive publication of government information: the need for agencies to organise and present their information so as to make it easily accessible in practice...

A little FOI and whistleblower history passes

Posted on September 11, 2009
Malcolm Brown wrote of the funeral of journalist Basil Sweeney in the Sydney Morning Herald last week, noting his involvement in the Phillip Arantz story of 1971 when then Sergeant Arantz in charge of the NSW Police computer unit gave crime statistics to Sweeney showing crime clear-up rates were far lower than officially stated...

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