International Law

Calling all stations for an information commissioner

Posted on September 11, 2009
Speaking of good people, the NSW Government is on the lookout for an Information Commissioner to act as the "independent champion"of the new open government regime established by the Government Information (Public Access) Act which will commence in early 2010...

Cloud cookoo still hanging over some in NSW Parliament

Posted on September 10, 2009
It's been on again this week as the NSW Government had another go at getting rid of the absurd law that would ban print media in NSW from publishing what everyone seems to describe as "crude league 'tables" of school performance. Here is some background if you missed it...

Reform, openness, transparency- for parliamentarians

Posted on September 08, 2009
The Australian National Audit Office Report Administration of Parliamentarians' Entitlements by the Department of Finance and Deregulation was tabled in Federal Parliament today (Steve Lewis of News had a couple of pre-release exclusives). Its not a happy tale of a cosy generally opaque system that has gone merrily along since the last comprehensive review (in 1971!!!!) with limited regard for the sort of standards we should expect, even when (make that particularly when) our politicians are on the receiving end of a swag of public money...

Action on entitlements by Labor, but Howard Government looked the other way

Posted on September 08, 2009
Senator Eric Abetz, Liberal Tasmania, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate. Shadow Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research.Plenty of media coverage today so I won't repeat the gory details of the parliamentarians' entitlements scheme and the way it has "worked" as revealed in the Auditor Generals' report released yesterday...

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Private life of public figures.

Posted on September 07, 2009
The resignation of NSW Health Minister and premier-plotter John Della Bosca last week after revelations of an affair with a woman half his age revived discussion of the line between public life and personal affairs.Lenore Taylor in The Australian thought publication was in the public interest, given some links between the affair and official duties, and the plans he shared with the lover about toppling the boss; some quoted in this report in The Age thought we had a right to know because of a breach of public trust but others disagreed; Adele Horin in the Sydney Morning Herald was at least pleased we are a little more adult about such things than the Americans but we may be on a slippery slide...

Gov 2.0 hits NSW

Posted on September 06, 2009
Meanwhile in NSW, Gov 2.0 is a topic of conversation with this NSW Public Sphere event at Parliament House last Friday, the Government's Information@the centre website announcing work being done to develop a roadmap on how to manage information, an apps competition for ideas and use of NSW data, and that a catalogue of government data-sets will be publicly available soon...

Monty Python and a cabinet convention

Posted on September 03, 2009
From The Advertiser:South Australian Premier Mike Rann has applied to access former Liberal government Cabinet documents about the state's 1995 United Water contract, under new FoI laws, which from next month will allow the release of Cabinet documents after 10 years...

Victoria FOI a mess, no sign of interest in clean-up either

Posted on September 03, 2009
There is nothing to say about the sad state of Freedom of Information in Victoria that David Rood and Jonathon Dowling haven't said in Secret State in The Age today - except in the reform stakes, while mentioning Federal Government plans, they make no reference to how Queensland and NSW have already acted to turn FOI on its head with modern laws that better reflect the Information Age in which we live...

PM on APS- worldbeaters in the making

Posted on September 03, 2009
Prime Minister Rudd's speech yesterday about the Australian Public Service and his priorities included what he referred to as the "entirely reasonable and achievable" aspiration to "make the APS the best public service anywhere in the world" involving "sweeping reform driven by a long-range blueprint for a world class, 21st century public service...

The public broadcaster and enthusiasm for FOI reform close to home

Posted on September 01, 2009
ABC Managing Director Mark Scott at Australia's Right to Know Conference in March 2009, (with emphasis added)"Let me acknowledge that some critics have suggested that it is a bit rich for the ABC to talk about leadership in areas of public access to information, when we ourselves are protected from some scrutiny through judicial rulings and the operations of the FOI act...

Ten bucks says leaks helpful to government didn't start yesterday

Posted on August 31, 2009
Principle is hard to find when Treasury advice supportive of the Government's position on the stimulus package mysteriously appears courtesy of a leak, while advice more generally must be guaranteed the confidentiality some such as PM&C Secretary Terry Moran says is essential for the proper working of government...

Business may have missed the boat on FOI reform

Posted on August 30, 2009
The business community has been hard to spot in the debate in recent years about the need for improved transparency and accountability, in particular freedom of information reform. The Federal Government Exposure Draft Freedom of Information Reform Bill released in March drew over 40 submissions but only one identifiably from business, from the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Submission 28 here)...

Gaps filling in lobbyist registration

Posted on August 30, 2009
Tasmania a week or so ago- Victoria and South Australia in the last few days announce plans for registration. Neither of the recent additions go beyond the basics: a public register and code of conduct for third party lobbyists, and a ban on post-separation lobbying by a minister for 18 months in Victoria (12 months for lesser mortals) and two years in SA after leaving office...

Federal Cabinet 101

Posted on August 28, 2009
Verona Burgess in today's Australian Financial Review mentions the Federal Government Cabinet Handbook available on the web at PM&C, in the first Rudd Government edition. A little hard to find even on the only cabinet page so here it is -Cabinet Handbook (Sixth Edition)Those unfamiliar with the mysteries of cabinet and how it operates, as well as those who work in the system, will find this of (well some) interest...

SA "enhancing democracy" through special FOI exemption

Posted on August 27, 2009
Quite a fuss in South Australia as a result of the Government adding a regulation to specially exempt from the Freedom of Information Act any documents concerning an investigation by former Auditor-General Ken MacPherson into claims of bullying and outside influence at Burnside Council, a hot issue there over the past year...

Privacy trumps on payments to ex MPs in the west

Posted on August 26, 2009
From the West Australian:"The State Government has refused to release the names of 39 former MPs who racked up a total of $80,000 in travel on the public purse last financial year. The West Australian obtained the figure through Freedom of Information legislation but the Department of Premier and Cabinet decided not to release the names of the former politicians to protect their privacy...

WA Premier says charge changes needed to curb Opposition FOI appetite

Posted on August 26, 2009
Western Australian Premier Colin Barnett cried foul in The Australian today about Opposition use of the Freedom of information Act for "frivolous and wasteful" fishing expeditions and threatened changes to the charging regime in response. But this line: "Mr Barnett said the state's FOI system was something for new special counsel to the state government, former director of public prosecutions Robert Cock QC, to consider...

A right to privacy in public, sometimes

Posted on August 24, 2009
Mark Day in The Australian writes on two recent instances of media reporting on events that happened in public and puts the view:" no reasonable case can be made against the media?s right to film or report on events in public." But Day agrees that in the case concerning Channel Ten, its treatment of the person was "over the top, unnecessary, insensitive and unfair", shortcomings best addressed in Day's opinion by newsroom education rather than what he sees as an increased interest in tighter regulation by the Australian Communications and Media Authority(ACMA)...

Discussion underway about privacy cause of action

Posted on August 21, 2009
Richard Ackland in the Sydney Morning Herald and the editorial in The Australian today comment on the NSW Law Reform Commission recommendation for a statutory cause of action for breach of privacy. Ackland is somewhat bemused about aspects of the report, but doesn't dismiss the recommendation and the earlier Australian Law Reform Commission proposal, suggesting these and other developments are powerful arguments in favour of an Australian rights charter or bill...

Frank advice remains confidential in Victoria

Posted on August 20, 2009
Access to some advice documents under the Victorian Freedom of Information Act is being determined on grounds that disclosure would inhibit the provision of frank advice in future, an argument questioned or rejected elsewhere.In a recent Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal decision the effect of disclosure of some documents was found to be contrary to the public interest because of the nature of the information and the consequential impact on ongoing government interests; others because they related to the preparation of a cabinet submission...

MPs allowance exclusives

Posted on August 20, 2009
Steve Lewis in an "exclusive" in today's Daily Telegraph ( but also in The Advertiser) adds a little more detail to his exclusive last week in the Herald Sun on the contents of a draft Auditor General's report on Federal MPs and the expenditure of allowances, including some spending on chocolates and children's fiction, and interesting big printing contracts for those printing allowances paid direct to members...

Complex questions about access to information about a child

Posted on August 19, 2009
New access to government information laws in Queensland and NSW ( yet to commence) include provisions (slight differences in wording) that attach weight to the public interest in non-disclosure of information concerning a child where disclosure would not be in the child's best interests...

A spring in your step with eDiscovery software

Posted on August 19, 2009
When it comes to the techo side of government information management, I can't contribute much, but note IBM has announced "new IBM eDiscovery software with advanced analytics features... to accelerate organizational agility in responding to litigation, regulatory, and freedom of information requests, while streamlining the integration of eDiscovery capabilities into comprehensive offerings...

NSWLRC calls for input on personal information issues

Posted on August 19, 2009
Had some experience, on either side of the desk, regarding access applications for information under the NSW Freedom of Information Act, that raised issues about personal information of someone other than the applicant, and have a view about the law, policies and procedures that were applied in handling the matter? The NSW Law Reform Commission is interested in hearing from you on its blog, in connection with an additional reference from the Attorney General that forms part of its broader privacy law inquiry...

Tasmania shines a little light on the big end of town

Posted on August 17, 2009
http://blogs.e-rockford.comTasmania is to join the crowd with a Lobbyists Register to regulate lobbyist contact with the Government from 1 September, as announced by Deputy Premier and Attorney General Lara Giddings. The Code of Conduct is similar to the Federal and other state schemes up and running: hired guns need to register with some exceptions; an on-line publicly available register of lobbyists and clients; ministers and public servants are not to meet unregistered lobbyists; and a failure by lobbyists to act in accordance with the code of conduct could result in loss of access altogether...

FOI scope question resolved after 13 years

Posted on August 17, 2009
Years after Freedom of Information commenced around the country, questions still crop up about what bodies are or are not covered by legislation. The latest, a decision by Justice Cavanough of the Supreme Court of Victoria in Attorney - General for the State Of Victoria v Kay [2009] VSC 337 that the Victims of Crime Assistance Tribunal was not an agency for the purposes of the Victorian Freedom of Information Act, comes 13 years after VOCAT was established...

"People can do what they do with public information"

Posted on August 16, 2009
Tell it to the NSW Greens and the state Opposition who voted to make it a crime to play around with published data on school performance to produce "crude and simplistic league tables" if published in a newspaper but not elsewhere. And to the NSW Law Reform Commission which says in the report on a privacy cause of action referred to in the previous post [5...

NSWLRC recommends privacy cause of action

Posted on August 14, 2009
The NSW Law Reform Commission in a report released today ( but dated April) recommends the state adopt a civil action for breach of privacy, but only as part of national law reform, so privacy law would be uniform throughout Australia. The report clarifies when an individual should be able to claim compensation and places limitations on the action...

SA FOI change for 10 year old cabinet documents

Posted on August 14, 2009
South Australian Premier Mike Rann has announced proposed changes that would remove the cabinet document Freedom of Information exemption for documents 10 years after they come into existence. Documents would only be exempt thereafter if another exemption applied...

Faulkner on transparency improvements at Defence

Posted on August 14, 2009
He's on the case: some extracts from a speech, Governance and Defence, Some Early Impressions, by Minister for Defence Senator Faulkner yesterday that will do something to reassure those critical of the department over excessive secrecy:"I have always held the view that transparency is crucial to good governance...

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