Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Women) Share this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to be able to take part in this fascinating discussion on freedom of information. I am very disappointed that Senator McGrath was able to finish three minutes early; I was hoping that there would be a little bit more time for him to share his views on this Freedom of Information Amendment (Requests and Reasons) Bill 2015.

I do agree with Senator McGrath on the importance of freedom of information in our government—in any government. In fact, we know that the history of freedom of information shows that a series of successive governments have identified the need to have transparency in decision making, and to allow citizens to engage with their government to ensure that they will understand effectively decisions that are being made and also a access information which is of interest to them. I applaud Senator Ludwig's decision to maintain this discussion in this place, because any piece of legislation must continue to be discussed and reviewed to ensure that it maintains its original purpose. We know that the original purpose of this legislation was to ensure transparency of decision making.

We have heard from previous speakers on this side of the chamber about concerns that have been raised over the last two years about the way that decisions have not been open and transparent under this government. A number of key areas of policy have been shrouded by a process which has maintained secrecy and security as a reason not to ensure that people have access to information, access to data and access to policy background which would make the decisions more transparent and also allow effective knowledge and discussion in the community about the background to policies that have impacted on them and on our community. This is not only in areas that have traditionally been shrouded by this process. I have had the discussion many times about my concerns that—when anything has the cover of ASIO and national security put over it—there is no ability to get further information on those processes. What we have seen is that this has been extended to other areas. Indeed, Senator Ludwig's bill is looking at how we can use existing freedom of information legislation to ensure that there is a public process so that, if decisions have been made, departments, which are actually speaking on behalf of their minister, then have to give a full and detailed explanation about why decisions on FOI have been declined or indeed why they have been approved.

The core element of this is to ensure that there is timeliness. A standard of 10 working days is part of many of the implements of Senator Ludwig's proposed legislation, and that standard is the basis on which this transaction should take place. We know that—because of resources issues, because of workloads and because of the volume of FOI requests that can occur around particular pieces of legislation on policy—there will be times that departments will not be able to meet a standard of 10 working days. That happens now when we do not have such a limit, but we do allow the department to explain to the applicant the reasons for delays, to explain to the applicant what their process is of looking further into the legislation, whilst maintaining this protection that there would be a an expectation that decisions would be made and translated within—(Time expired)

Debate interrupted.