Covering up the truth – the length some agencies go to
The late nobel prize winner and physicist Niels Bohr once said: "The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of democracy should be openness".
It is with this in mind that a way to accurately measure how democratic a government agency is by how they deal with Freedom of Information applications.
Those dealings are ultimately a reflection on who’s in charge because even though the handling of FOI applications is meant to be independent of the Minister/Prime Minister/Premier/CEO/Secretary/Director-General, they’re not.
That’s not to say that FOI officers aren’t able to act independently, but that’s only if the powers that be will let them.
And the FOI laws will also help dictate this because generally the most secretive agencies are in states with the most conservative FOI laws – ie. Victoria and South Australia.
There are a lot of contenders for Australia’s most secretive agency this year, but it’s hard to go past the Public Transport Authority in Western Australia which consistently is dogged in its determination to fight almost every single FOI application. For example, just recently, they were forced to provide me with fines issued to bus drivers caught speeding or running red lights over the past six months after intervention from the WA FOI Commissioner.
They argued that it’d be an unreasonable diversion of resources to release three months worth, even though they’d released a year’s worth previously. I compromised with six months and then when I reapplied for the second six months, they sent an email claiming that now it would be an unreasonable diversion of resources to do more than one month. So even though they know the FOI Commissioner will intervene and force them to do it, they’d prefer to wait until they’re dragged kicking and screaming by the FOI Commissioner. And after three years dealing with the PTA, it’s clear the only thing that is actually proving to be an unreasonable diversion of resources is the time and money poured into trying to avoid complying with their FOI obligations.
In South Australia, the Attorney-General’s Department has come up with a new tactic of doing frivolous and unnecessary searches on every application and then sending a massive bill for an advance deposit for documents which they ultimately won’t give you anyway because they’re exempt under FOI.
When notified, it became apparent that Attorney-General John Rau not only condoned this behaviour, but supported it.
He wasn’t available for an interview, but in a statement, his spokesman said: “More than 10,000 FOI applications are received in South Australia each year and any fair assessment of the system and practice cannot be made on the basis of one allegation.”
Labor has been in power in South Australia for 15 years and at this stage is unlikely to lose the next election so sadly they can afford to be arrogant.
Fortunately in Victoria, attempts are under way by its Labor Government to finally improve their FOI legislation, which is the oldest in the nation. But it appears these efforts could be thwarted by the the Opposition and minor parties in the Upper House. If that happens, it will truly be a terrible blow for the state’s democracy.
This year, the Seven Network, also embarked upon the largest FOI that has ever been undertaken in this country, in which we attempted to obtain documents from every Australian public university in relation to sex assaults on campus. Subsequent stories have aired on Sunday Night, Seven News and news.com
Consistent with their FOI laws, the most open and accountable universities were in NSW and QLD, most notably the University of New England which speaks volumes about not only their openness and accountability, but their commitment to addressing this very serious issue.
Unsurprisingly the worst were in Victoria being Melbourne, Monash, Latrobe and RMIT universities which all went to extreme lengths to avoid being open and accountable. Likewise with Canberra University which denied being uncooperative despite refusing to provide any documents on the issue.
Fortunately much of what they were trying to hide was exposed when police provided the incident reports following separate FOI applications, which proves excuses by the uncooperative universities were baseless.
As has been proven so many times over the course of history, the only ones who try to conceal the truth are those who have a lot to hide.
Alison Sandy is the Seven Network’s FOI Editor and lodged more than 800 FOI applications nationwide this year
Top 5 Most Open and Accountable Government agencies
- QLD Transport and Main Roads Department
- Royal Perth Hospital
- NSW Education
- Transport for NSW
- Sydney Trains
Top 5 Most Secretive Government Agencies
- Public Transport Authority WA
- Department of Corrective Services WA
- Attorney-General’s Department SA
- Banyule City Council VIC
- Department of Health and Human Services VIC
