Tony Lupton - Speech
Freedom of Information Bill
05 February 2008
I am very pleased to be able to speak in support of the Freedom of Information Amendment Bill today and applaud the government for introducing these important reforms to freedom of information here in Victoria -- reforms that are largely based on recommendations of the Ombudsman in his report, but importantly reforms that go even further than those that were recommended by the Ombudsman.
I will set out the main purposes of the bill. In the first instance it will abolish freedom of information application fees, which were introduced in this state by the Kennett government. When the Cain Labor government introduced freedom of information legislation there were no application fees set out in the legislation to apply when people sought information.
Early on in its seven dark years of power the Kennett government made what can only be regarded as a very retrograde move by introducing application fees under FOI. What was found was that when the application fees were introduced the number of applications for information under the act initially fell by some 10 percent. That was the sort of attitude the Liberal-National government, elected in 1992, had to freedom of information, and that was the type of effect it had on the number of applications and the ability of people to gain access to information in this state. A little later in my remarks I will go on to deal with some of those other historical matters.
An additional objective of this legislation before us now is to implement all the legislative recommendations made by the Ombudsman in his report on FOI to improve the operation of this legislation. There are some non-legislative recommendations that the Ombudsman made, which I understand have already been implemented by all relevant agencies, but this legislation implements all the legislative recommendations made by the Ombudsman -- that is, changes that require legislative amendment in order to put them into effect.
This legislation, however, goes further than that and fulfils our government's election commitment to the people of Victoria to remove conclusive certificate provisions in relation to cabinet documents. This means that in the future conclusive certificates can only be used in cases of national security.
Further, the legislation also modernises the FOI act to take into account the increasing public use of the internet -- for example, by increasing the ability to lodge FOI applications online and requiring all government departments and agencies to increase the information that they freely provide on the internet about how government functions. That last item I mentioned goes to an evolving and continually improving culture of giving access to information on a broader scale.
Part of this legislation is underpinned by the concept that the maximum amount of information should really be made available to people as appropriate without the necessity of making an FOI application in order to get it -- if it is not really necessary for it to be part of an FOI application, it should be available accordingly -- and that is put into effect by this legislation.
The Liberal Party and The Nationals make a lot of noise about FOI. They say they are committed to FOI, but of course we know that when they were last in government their record in relation to these types of activities was a sad and sorry one.
They can attempt to twist and change history as best they can, but the people of Victoria are well aware that the former Kennett government was particularly savage when it came to freedom of information matters. What we did on coming back into government in 1999 was to repair the damage that had been done by the Kennett government to freedom of information in this state.
We all recollect those appalling stories of the shopping trolleys going into the cabinet room and going out again at the other end, full of documents that would thereby be classified as cabinet documents although they had never been considered by cabinet at all. We remember the stories of enormous volumes of material being appended to cabinet submissions purely for the purpose of trying to give them cabinet confidentiality when they were in no way cabinet documents. When the Liberal Party was in government it expanded the definition of 'cabinet document' in an attempt to bring more of those sorts of documents under its regime of confidentiality.
It is interesting that there are some members of the opposition at the table as I am speaking, particularly the member for Box Hill and the member for Brighton, who, back in 1993, supported amendments introduced by the Kennett government which brought in the application fee I mentioned earlier which reduced the number of FOI applications in Victoria and extended the definition of 'cabinet document'. These members, who are sitting here today, voted for those amendments, which quite severely restricted freedom of information in this state. That is the history the Liberal Party has, whereas our approach in government has been one of expanding and continuing to change the culture of FOI so that people have proper and appropriate access to information in this state.
Before concluding my remarks I need to make a couple of points about our record over those years to put all this in context. FOI requests have increased by 50 per cent since this government came to office, and in 2006-07 there were more than 20 000 applications for the fifth year in a row.
Under our government documents have been provided in 97.4 per cent of cases in relation to access decisions, and less than 1 per cent of FOI decisions have been appealed to VCAT (the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal) -- and of those decisions that have been appealed, most have been upheld. In 2006-07 there was the lowest percentage of internal reviews of FOI decisions ever conducted.
What we see is that for every year that this government has been in office since 1999 the percentage of documents released under FOI applications in this state has been over 95 per cent -- in fact it has been something of the order of 98 per cent every year since Labor has been in office. Prior to our coming to office there had never been a year in which the percentage of documents released under FOI was more than 95 percent. There has been a clear trend in this state since 1999 of more information being made available. A higher percentage of the documents sought under FOI has been released. But we know that times change and that we have to continue to keep up with technological and cultural change.
We need to make sure that the common use that is made of the internet these days is taken into account in the way FOI applications are made and assessed. We need to make sure that the culture of dealing appropriately with the applications that are made to government departments is being improved. That process is the sort of thing that is being developed by this piece of legislation. It will mean that the approach to freedom of information in this state as evidenced by the percentage of successful applications under FOI since 1999 will continue.
We support freedom of information in this state.
Our record in this regard is significantly better than -- in fact a world apart from -- the approach that the Kennett government had towards FOI. The amendments that are being made by the legislation before the house will continue this trend by putting into effect the recommendations of the Ombudsman and putting into effect our election commitment to abolish conclusive certificates. The cultural changes that are to be driven by this government will continue to improve freedom of information for the people of this state. I support the bill and commend it to the house.
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