Australia’s freedom of information system is being hampered by a lack of resources, the Senate has been told.
The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner has pleaded for more funding to process freedom of information (FOI) requests, the tool used by journalists and members of the public to get official documents from the government.
Angelene Falk, who holds the dual roles of information commissioner and privacy commissioner, told a Senate estimates hearing late Tuesday night that she had asked for more funding to process FOI requests.
“I certainly share the view that additional resources are needed for FOI and I have sought to try to enable that to the extent I can within my control,” Falk said. “I have put to the department the need for additional resources for the functions of the office and did so in the context of the recent budget.”
The May budget contained no extra money for the commission’s FOI work, but it did add $44.3 million over four years to support the work of a privacy commissioner, and $900,000 to respond to a review of the Privacy Act.
“I requested funding across the privacy and FOI functions. And there was funding provided for the privacy functions of the office,” Falk said.
When LNP Senator Paul Scarr pressed Falk on how much more FOI money she had requested, Labor’s Agriculture Minister Murray Watt, who was at the table to represent the attorney-general, intervened: “I think Ms Falk has been very helpful but you are getting into areas of advice, and the deliberations of ministers, and that kind of content is not normally provided in answers to questions at estimates.”
Falk was also asked about the resignation of the former FOI commissioner Leo Hardiman, who quit less than a year into the job complaining in a resignation letter of a lack of resources.
“There were always matters of the resourcing of the area, which was a matter that I had sought to pursue over a number of years,” Falk said. “And in relation to that, I had provided my full support to continue to pursue resources for the function. So commissioner Hardiman did not raise matters with me prior to his resignation, nor foreshadow his resignation.”
Hardiman’s resignation and the functioning of the FOI system will be the focus of a Senate inquiry.
There would be no need for extra funding for the Information Commission if Commonwealth government departments and agencies provided FOI customers with the information they seek and did so within the decision making and time-lines decreed by FOI law. A major downside to that Act is that it does not include penalties for noncompliance by public servants and Ministers.
There is, though, a way a decision maker can be held accountable for failure to act lawfully. That is by using the Public Service Act and linked requirements to persue those who act outside the specific bounds of fiduciary stewardship as also the Values that bind public officials. The jailing of one Permanent Head for wasting public funds, time and misusing “powers” to prevent or stymie an FOI customer would, no doubt, be a telling organisational culture and decision making event.
Perhaps the FOI requests have increased over time.
Also providing documents under FOI isn’t as work free as it might seem. Relevant documents have to be located, an endeavour that may require contacting and instituting searches across a number of agencies or sections of a department. Searches are nearly always an add on to the work a public service officer is required to do.
Once found documents may include information on topics not relevant to the request or identifying personal information that has to be removed. Redacting documents is a time consuming exercise that is very difficult to automate.
It’s difficult.
On the one hand, it’s vital that government is transparent when outcomes affect citizens who have rights. Without access to information, citizens can’t access their rights.
On the other hand, FOI admin requires resources. What’s to stop a bad actor eg a rogue billionaire, miner or developer, from making large numbers of FOI requests for the purpose of tying up bureaucrats so they won’t cross him or her?
More money for privacy and less for FOI? Why am I not surprised. When information is unavailable, assume the worst.
I doubt that it’s ‘hampered’ by lack of funds, ‘hobbled’ might be rather more appropriate.
As anyone who has ever been within any sort of reach of government might know, if you want to stop something being done don’t fund it.
So if you want to hobble FOI, cut the funds, if you want to hobble environmental oversight cut the funds.
And so it goes – with apologies to Kurt V.