faulker03

I haven't been through the report of the review An Independent Parliamentary Entitlements System but these seem to be the recommendations relevant to transparency and accountability. This is territory traversed in the past to some degree by the Auditor General and the Belcher committee. In those instances quite a few recommendations were ignored or conveniently disappeared through the cracks, but we live in hope....  ( Update: F r om Minister Cormann's Media R elease: The Government supports all the recommendations in principle and will now commence work on implementation. Implementation of a number of recommendations will involve further work by the Remuneration Tribunal, which the Government will ask the Tribunal to commence forthwith. Recommendation 24   Improving transparency – publish all key documents online The Government should ensure that all rules and practices relating to interpretation and operation of the work expenses framework are published together online, ...

opensource.com The South Australian Law Reform Institute Final Report on A Statutory Tort for Invasion of Privacy includes 34 recommendations fleshing out the detail of its principal recommendation that the South Australian Parliament should enact a limited cause of action for serious invasions of personal privacy. The report remind s in 1973, the former South Australian Law Reform Committee recommended that a general right of privacy be created;  bills to establish that right were introduced into the parliament in 1974 and again in 1991 but were both defeated ; the Australian Law Reform Commission in 2008, the NSW Law Reform Commission in 2009, and the Victorian Law Reform Commission in 2010 recommended the introduction of a statutory cause of action for invasion of privacy; the Australian Law Reform Commission returned to the subject again in 2014 when the report "Serious Invasions of Privacy in the Digital Age" recommended that if a cause of action for serious invasion...

The Governor General has prorogued Parliament with effect from 5pm on 15 April and summoned Parliament to sit for a new session at and from 9.30am on 18 April. The Parliament will sit for three weeks before the Budget on 3 May. According to the advice from the Attorney General that accompanied the Prime Minister's letter to the Governor General "The effect of prorogation is that Bills on the Notice paper will lapse but can be restored in the manner set out in the Standing Orders." The Prime Minister states the reason for recalling Parliament is to enable it to give full and timely consideration to two important parcels of industrial legislation, the ABCC Bills and the Registered Organisations Bill. He adds "If time permits the Government might also use the additional sitting days to consider other legislation." One other piece of legislation on the Senate Notice paper since October 2014 is the Freedom of Information Amendment (New Arrangements) Bill, the bi...

I n the Senate last week Senator Penny Wong asked about a Freedom of Information request made to the Attorney Generals' Department three months ago which remains unanswered.  The debate went all over the place from there with Attorney General Brandis darting and weaving over the specific issue before maintaining silence when Senator Joe Ludwig (pictured) made some general observations, about FOI administration. While time expired there are plenty of opportunities for Senator Brandis to set the record as he sees it. Senator Ludwig said:  "..Senator Brandis presides over the worst administration of FOI that this country has ever seen.. This government wants to dismantle the FOI regime that has been in place for many years. It has legislation sitting on the Notice Paper to do just that. This government does not support the FOI regime we have now, let alone the previous FOI regime. The coalition government is and continues to be unhelpful when it comes to FOI requests... But...

With the Federal Government on the receiving end for 'doing nothing' on a range of pressing issues and three sitting days before Parliament rises until the Budget in May, will Attorney General Brandis stick with doing nothing, pull the bill to abolish the Office of Australian Information Commissioner from the Senate or call it on for a vote that he knows the government can't win? Doing nothing speaks for itself - a discouraging, dispiriting message for those still looking for signs of real interest in 'good government' an d recognition that transparency, accountability and public participation are a big part of the mix. Withdrawal of the bill would indicate serious intent regarding the Prime Minister's commitment to join and participate-'play a leading role' no less- in the Open Government Partnership.  Arguing in the Senate in a futile attempt to convince Labor, the Greens and the crossbench senators to support abolishing the watchdog / advoc...

Clearly some who walk the corridors of power think all wisdom resides withi n. NSW is a classic case, where a statutory review of legislation disappeared from public view in August 2014 and hasn't been heard of since. More below. Then there's the Hawke statutory review of the Commonwealth Freedom of I nformation and Information Commissioner acts in 2012-13 that involved very limited public engagement beyond invited submissions and led to a report in early 2013 that has not been the subject of policy discussion in the public domain since. The one Abbott government FOI initiative, the (ongoing) attempt to legislate to abolish the Office of Australian Information Commissioner was not supported by anything in the review report , on the contrary H awke conclud ing the office was doing a good job. That initiative wasn't discussed beforehand outside government and only with a few inside, with no apparent search for options and better answers to whatever problem (allegedly co...

Take it away David Fricker Director General National Archives Australia, as reported in The Canberra Times: "There seems to be an accepted position that the general public must always resort to freedom of information legislation to obtain the information it needs to hold the government to account," he told an audience at the National Press Club. "Presumably [that is] because there is a general feeling the public service is either unwilling or perhaps unable to retrieve, collate and provide the information that should [be] in the public domain." Mr Fricker said he was sympathetic to the view the government had not prioritised transparency given lengthy and often costly battles for public information. He said the growing demand for information had placed pressure on many public servants with ministers eager to respond to concerns in the media at short notice. "Day by day we are seeing more and more calls for greater transparency and accountability wit...

In t he 2014-15 Annual Report on the operation of the NSW Government Information (Public Access) Act tabled in Parliament las t week, Information C ommissioner E lizabeth Tydd commented that the strategic intent of the GIPA Act is "not being fully realised " because of shortcomings in the proactive release of information by government agencies, and in response to applications for information,that there ha d been an overall decline in information released.  The Mandarin provide s a good summary.  P oints of interest from my reading: c ompliance by agencies with mandatory proactive disclosure requirements is down from 80% in 2012/13 to 69% in 201 4-15 . ( Comment : If agencies aren't fully complying with mandatory proactive disclosure requirement s almost six years after the act came into force you have to wonder what difficulty they have in understanding the term 'mandatory.' The Commissioner doesn't name agencies - in the ca se of those at th...