faulker03

"Transparency International Australia is calling on the Australian government to address critical deficiencies in Australia’s anti-corruption laws , as the country falls further on the international Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) for the third year in a row.   Today it was revealed that world-wide perceptions of the level of corruption in Australia’s government sector continue to worsen, with Australia’s CPI score falling to 79, down from 85 in 2012, 81 in 2013 and 80 in 2014. Australia is now ranked 13 th out of the 168 countries included in the Index – down six positions since 2012, and joining countries like Libya, Brazil, Spain and Turkey as big decliners over that period. The annual Index compiled by Transparency International uses 12 surveys of expert assessment and views of business people globally. The highest ranked country is Denmark with a score of 91. TI Australia’s incoming chairman The Hon. Anthony Whealy QC described the continued slide as “the res...

The Attorney General is to appeal the Tribunal decision against his office handed down by Justice Jagot in December and the subject of three posts here earlier in the week.  No surprise, the appeal to the Federal Court is "in the public interest" according to a spokeswoman for Senator Brandis, quoted in Fairfax : "the tribunal's findings had "wide-ranging implications for the FOI system. Accordingly, it is in the public interest that there be judicial clarification of how the FOI system operates," she said. Senator Brandis' lawyers will argue that Justice Jagot "erred" by not deciding that FOI decision makers needed to consult all third parties named in diary entries, where "there was some prospect that such an entry might be exempt [from disclosure]," court documents say. Not sure how the appeal advances the Attorney General's concern expressed before Christmas that "as a general rule minister's diaries ought not ...

The third of three related posts . Justice J agot in Dreyfus and Attorney General (Commonwealth of Australia) [2015] AATA 995 found the t he Office of the Attorney General got it wrong in refusing to process a F reedom of Information a pplication for the AG's appointments diary .     Of course the office involved isn't just any ministerial office.  It's the office of the minister with overall responsibility for administration of the Freedom of Information Act. And the Attorney G eneral has plans before Parliament that if passed would see him play a bigger role in guiding other ministers, agencies and the tribunal on interpretation and application of the act. The Attorney General's initial and so far as I have seen only response to the decision is that he opposes release of ministerial diaries as a matter of principle: "Let's be clear that the principle that I was upholding is the same principle Mr Dreyfus when he was a minister in the previous...

 The second of three related posts. Justice Jagot's ruling in Dreyfus and Attorney General (Commonwealth of Australia) [2015] AATA 995 on the interpretation and application of the Freedom of information Act provisions regarding third party consultation and the method of assessing the time involved is of significance generally as a somewhat rare Tribunal decision on the subject. However t he Office of Australian Information Commissioner has dealt with a swag of cases over the last year often rejecting agency arguments about these issues. And rejecting what some agencies without foundation seem to regard as a golden rule-that a request that is likely to take more than 40 hours will substantially and unreasonably divert resources.   My guess is the reported decisions are the tip of a rather large pile of questionable decisions regarding consultation. Allof which must cost the taxpayer a packet-probably more than the cost of getting on and processing the application ...

The first of three related posts. Justice Jagot in Dreyfus and Attorney General (Commonwealth of Australia) [2015] AATA 995 overturned the decision by the O ffice of the Attorney General to refuse to process a Freedom of Information application for the Attorney General's appointments diary for the period 18 September 2013 to 12 May 2014.   Justice Jagot ordered the office to process the application by Shadow Attorney General Mark Dreyfus after a finding that processing would not substantially and unreasonably interfere with the performance of the Minister's functions (Sections 24 and 24AA).   Justice Jagot was critical of and disagreed with the approach taken by the office in interpreting and applying the act's provisions on third party consultation, and the calculation of the estimated time involved in order to justify the 'substantial and unreasonable' claim: 76.... this is a case where my conclusion is ultimately based on the onus of proof. It has not...

The Sydney Morning Herald on the mysterious $20 million fire at Liverpool City Council (NSW) that according to staff at the time destroyed 8905 files. Councillors were unconvinced of the report's accuracy and scope and ordered a new investigation in response to queries from residents. "A more professional investigation last year found that only 624 hard copy files, many of them dating back decades or more and of limited contemporary use, had been lost in the fire," a spokesman for the council said.

Enjoyed episodes of the marvellous Yes Minister series over the break, including The Skeleton in the Cupboard where Sir Humphrey is anxious to avoid disclosure of his involvement as a junior official thirty years before in a monumental stuff up. As the file is now due for open access the Minister asks: How am I going to explain the missing documents to "The Mail"? Sir Humphrey Appleby : Well, this is what we normally do in circumstances like these. James Hacker : [ reads memo ] This file contains the complete set of papers, except for a number of secret documents, a few others which are part of still active files, some correspondence lost in the floods of 1967... James Hacker : Was 1967 a particularly bad winter? Sir Humphrey Appleby : No, a marvellous winter. We lost no end of embarrassing files. James Hacker : [ reads ] Some records which went astray in the move to London and others when the War Office was incorporated in the Ministry of Defence, and the normal wi...

Plenty to fill columns in the media on New Years day with the annual cabinet document release by Archives Australia, this year for 1990-1991, the last years of the Hawke government. Not widely reported was that the release comes with the usual mysteries concerning 'the small amount of material" withhheld. Who knows at what point these elements of ancient history become publicly known and acknowledged ancient history.  Three cabinet documents are withheld in their entirely-not even the title can be disclosed- because disclosure"would damage Australia's security, defence or international relations – s33(1)(a)." Twenty six documents are released with redactions ("Open with exception"-OWE) based on this and other provisions in section 33 of the Archives Act. Gabrielle Chan in The Guardian writes about the document released with redactions ("Open with exceptions"-OWE)  concerning the Coronation Hill mining lease held by BHP in an area that i...