Community Alliance Party

Discussion paper

Five major reforms of freedom of information laws are proposed by the Community Alliance Party as the first step towards improved and more open government, says Roger Nicoll.

"Our starting point will be amending the Freedom of Information Act 1989 (FOI Act) to require documents to be released in the public interest, with the responsibility put onto government to prove otherwise if it wants to withhold documents," said Mr Nicoll.

The proposed reforms are to:

• publish the results of FOI applications on the Internet
• abolish conclusive certificates
• define the term 'public interest' to include open discussion of public affairs
• reduce the scope of exemptions under 'public interest'
• limit the application of the cabinet-in-confidence label to a very limited set of cabinet documents and have the exemption expire at the end of each term of government.

"At the very least, making the results on public interest FOI requests available on the Internet would remove the wasted duplication of effort seen when agencies need to respond to very similar FOI requests," he said. "It would also improve the standard of debate if all stakeholders were given equal access to documents."

Details of the other proposed reforms are attached.

Mr Nicoll says that the Community Alliance wants to see a change in the ACT Government's approach to information that sees a proactive approach to providing information.

"The information value of 20,000 FOI pages of school closures over 20 months has been reduced by the time taken to respond to the initial requests (made in June and December 2006), the thousands of pages of deletions (the blacked out bits) and hundreds of pages kept secret through the use of conclusive certificates," says Mr Nicoll.

"We want a review of the entire approach to information management, starting with the way Territory records are managed, to how they are made available for public release," said Mr Nicoll.

"We have had self government for 20 years, and it is probably time to accept that the people of the ACT can bear the responsibility not only of voting, but also of having the information to make informed decisions and to fully participate in their democracy."

Contact: Roger Nicoll