On The 7.30 Report on 29 August 2006 Peter Costello was shown making these comments about FOI:

This will become an obstacle to giving candid and fearless advice. Let me say to you, we do have candid and fearless moments in the Cabinet. This may surprise you. But it does happen. We would be far less fearless and candid in the Cabinet if we knew that the minutes were going to be released under FOI. That protection is very, very important to us.

Maybe Peter Costello and his cabinet colleagues and senior public servants should undertake a working exchange visit with their New Zealand counterparts. Despite passing FOI legislation at roughly the same time the two countries have taken radically different paths. Australia has stumbled into an Alice in Wonderland landscape where secrecy is the norm. New Zealand has found itself in an environment where frequent access to recent and informative Cabinet information is the the day to day gist of journalists, citizens and decisionmakers lives. Look at these recent examples:

Cabinet papers for $14 million funding for Maori development released. (The Dominion Post, 17 Aug 2004)

Cabinet papers for a $2.3 million government programme for a cultural diplomacy international programme, launched by Prime Minister released (The Dominion Post, 3 May 2005)

Cabinet papers revealing that the NZ government had ordered an urgent review of New Zealand’s patchy tsunami-readiness systems because of concerns they were not adequate. (The Dominion Post, 28 Febuary 2005)

Bob Geldof criticisied New Zealand’s aid efforts. An access request revealed that 2 years earlier 2 Labour cabinet ministers had raised similar arguments in cabinet (Sunday Star Times, 23 July 2006).

The Sunday Star-Times was given the financial breakdown under the Official Information Act of the cost of New Zealand’s defence commitment to East Timor and also received cabinet papers showing April’s violence left the UN undecided about its future in East Timor. (Sunday Star Times, 6 August 2006)

Information released under the Official Information Act revealed that high-risk paedophiles could be chemically castrated under a radical plan being considered by the government. The Cabinet papers revealed government departments here are divided over the proposal, amid fears it would breach the Bill of Rights and medical ethics. (Sunday Star Times, 11 January 2004)

Cabinet papers reveal that due to manufacturing constraints and CSL’s priorities, bird flu vaccine it would not be available in New Zealand for 15 to 27 weeks after the World Health Organisation declared a pandemic and New Zealand placed its order. New Zealand is third on CSL’s list, after Australia and a small country in the region that neither CSL nor the ministry would name. (New Zealand Herald, 7 February 2006)

The Australian tried to access the first home buyers and Tax Bracket Creep documents before an election campaign. Two campaigns later we are none the wiser. Meanwhile at the last New Zealand election campaign a request was made for the Treasury costings of the student loans scheme. Information that Treasury and the Minister of Finance didn’t want released, yet the Ombudsmen fast-tracked the complaint to process it before last year’s election.

It seems that Peter Costello, the senior public service and a majority of the High Court just can’t understand that the edifice of the Australian Westminster system will not collapse if you let out a little bit more information. Which area of need could have benefited (excluding the lawyers) if the amount of money, energy, and time spent in the McKinnon case had been redirected.