The Sydney Morning Herald http://www.smh.com.au/news/9906/03/text/national17.html Agencies 'frustrating freedom of information' Date: 03/06/99 By DAMIEN MURPHY Freedom of Information exemptions are being misused by Federal Government agencies to prevent information about Coalition Government policy being made available for public scrutiny, a Commonwealth Ombudsman report says. It identified a "growing culture" of passive resistance to the disclosure of information by Federal Government agencies. Agencies are also hiding behind rising application fees to deter people from using FoI legislation, and only 25 per cent of requests are being acted on within statutory time limits. The Federal Attorney-General's Department is so concerned about the Ombudsman's findings it has proposed the Government consider establishing an FoI Commissioner to take responsibility for the administration of the FoI Act. The Commonwealth Ombudsman, Mr Ron McLeod, said the report showed administration of FoI was at the crossroads. "This review identified widespread problems in the recording of FoI decisions and probable misuse of exemptions to avoid disclosure of information, particularly in those agencies which are more likely to receive requests about government policy matters," Mr McLeod said. He said investigations had indicated that some of the principles of the original legislation had been forgotten or were not understood by some managers working in Federal Government agencies. "This report is a timely reminder to agencies that citizens' access to personal records and information about the working of government is a basic element of our democratic system," he said. In his biggest undertaking since being appointed in February last year, Mr McLeod did not wait for complaints from the public about the FoI system but took the unprecedented step of launching his own investigation after a trend indicated the FoI administration system was not working. His strong indictment of Federal Government treatment of FoI requests follows fears by his predecessor, Ms Phillipa Smith, for the future independence of the Ombudsman's office when Mr McLeod was appointed by the Coalition Government without any public advertising. More than 90 per cent of FoI requests are for personal information. Four agencies, the departments of Veterans' Affairs and Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, Centrelink and the Australian Taxation Office receive 90 per cent of all FoI requests. "While there appears to be a high level of disclosure of personal information by agencies, there are signs which suggest access to other types of information is at times being limited by the misuse of exemptions provided by the [FoI] Act," Mr McLeod said. It also appeared that one of the main aims of the act for government agencies, which was to make the maximum amount of information publicly available so as to remove the need for people to seek information under the FoI Act, was not being realised. "Collectively, the problems identified in this report are illustrative of a growing culture of passive resistance to the disclosure of information," Mr McLeod said. The report also found charges for FoI applications had almost doubled in the past three years from $123 to $239. This material is subject to copyright and any unauthorised use, copying or mirroring is prohibited. ************************************************************************* This posting is provided to the individual members of this group without permission from the copyright owner for purposes of criticism, comment, scholarship and research under the "fair use" provisions of the Federal copyright laws and it may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner, except for "fair use." -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.alexia.net.au/~www/mhutton/index.html Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink
