‘Unearthing how government operates’: how the public uses freedom of information to seek truth

This piece is part of a series. Read the introduction and find the full series here.

Alan Ashmore spends a lot of his time helping those who have served. As one of the administrators of a Facebook group that helps Australian Defence Force veterans navigate compensation and entitlements, Ashmore encourages others to use an unusual tool as part of their claims: the freedom of information (FOI) request.

“I’m a Vietnam vet. I exited 53 years ago, but even for those who exited 20 years ago, they probably only remember 85% to 90% of it. But whenever they get their file using an FOI request, there’ll often be something they forgot about,” he told Crikey.

Ashmore is a veteran of the FOI system, too. Over the past few years, he’s submitted more than 30 requests — many of them successful — to prise information from what he says is an increasingly opaque Department of Veteran Affairs. As part of his quest to hold government to account, he’s patiently revealed information such as the rates of veterans self-harming and sexual abuse claims in the ADF. 

Much of the discussion around Australia’s culture of secrecy — including our restricted and sluggish freedom of information regime — centres journalists and politicians as the main protagonists. 

But what separates FOI laws from other mechanisms of political accountability, such as Senate estimates or press conferences, is that it is just as accessible to a member of the public like Ashmore than an investigative journalist or a hounding crossbencher. 

Earlier this year, the Senate voted to establish an inquiry into Australia’s freedom of information laws following the resignation of the frustrated FOI commissioner. To coincide with a submission to the inquiry, Crikey’s REDACTED series examines the impact and pitfalls of our nation’s FOI system.

In most cases, obtaining access to never-before-seen government information can be as simple as coming up with an idea, sending an email and waiting for a response. And it can be even easier thanks to OpenAustralia’s Right To Know website, which helps punters submit their own requests and archives the requests of others. 

This mechanism allows individuals to obtain their Defence Department medical file, find out how many people have applied for a type of visa to inform their decision to emigrate to Australia, or, in one case, get their local council to find the nearest stormwater pipe to their house. 

The Australia Institute’s Democracy & Accountability Program director Bill Browne said that one of the surprising findings of the organisation’s review of the FOI system was how many individuals were using requests for private matters like their visa applications. But, he said, the beauty of the system is that it isn’t just for people finding out about their own situation.

“At its best, you do see people unearthing not just information that’s of personal interest, but details of how government operates that have broader implications and are of general interest,” he told Crikey.

Organisations have also used the FOI system as part of their advocacy to great effect — from the Australia Institute revealing Barnaby Joyce’s drought envoy texts and the Adani CEO’s link to environmental offences, all the way to the other end of the political spectrum with the Institute of Public Affairs unveiling ABC staff’s climate change committees and James Cook University’s spending on legal matters regarding Dr Peter Ridd. Sometimes, these groups’ requests even end up in the hands of journalists, like in the case of Sex Work Law Reform Victoria unearthing emails from Victoria MP Moira Deeming’s time as a councillor. 

Fringe groups have also tried to use the FOI system to prove their unfounded or incorrect beliefs.

Earlier this year, one conspiracy figure wrongly claimed they had proven that “the ATO [Australian Tax Office] does not exist” because their FOI request did not turn up a document they mistakenly believed was necessary for its establishment. Anti-vaxxers have also tried requesting “proof” that COVID-19 exists or that vaccines work, and when agencies ask to revise their request into something workable, these conspiracy groups hold up the refusal to justify their incorrect beliefs.

But for Ashmore, freedom of information requests are his humble way of contributing to a practice of governments becoming more open, rather than less.

“If [the Department of Veteran Affairs] was half as transparent as they had been a few years ago, I’d be doing half the requests,” he said.