faulker03

We know auditors go about their work quietly.... Even so I was surprised to learn recently that the Australian National Audit Office has underway a performance audit Administration of the Freedom of Information Act : Entities : Attorney-General’s Department; Office of the Australian Information Commissioner; Department of Social Services; Department of Veterans' Affairs.   Objective : To assess the effectiveness and efficiency of entities’ implementation of the Freedom of Information Act 1982 . Audit Criteria: The Attorney-General’s Department and Office of the Australian Information Commissioner effectively and efficiently perform their respective roles in providing guidance and assistance to entities and monitoring compliance with the FOI Act. The selected entities effectively and efficiently process FOI document access requests. The selected entities release relevant information under the Information Publication Scheme (IPS). Wikimedia Commons:Paty Montano Mention of the a...

It's been quite a journey since Australia was first invited to join the Open Government Partnership in August 2011, since the Labor Government signed on in May 2013, and since Prime Minister Turnbull revived Australia's commitment in November 2015, but... A draft Open Government National Action Plan has been released this morning by the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet for public consultation. The Minister for Finance has drawn attention to the plan and invited public comment. (Administrative responsibility remains with PM&C) The draft Plan can be accessed/downloaded here: PDF:  Australia’s first Open Government National Action Plan DOCX:  Australia’s first Open Government National Action Plan HTML: Australia’s first Open Government National Action Plan As the minister states, the draft was developed through a consultation process that began in December 2015 and was informed by an interim working group established in August 2016.  The extent of 'ambition' i...

Heath Aston  in The Sydney Morning Herald A one-page letter that the federal government has spent a year and a half and tens of thousands of dollars trying to keep from public sight raises explosive questions about Barnaby Joyce's conduct and "integrity". The March 2015 letter written by Paul Grimes, the former head of the Agriculture Department, was sent 10 days before he was sacked amid fallout from the so-called "Hansard-gate" affair in which the transcript of some of Mr Joyce's statements in Parliament were quietly altered. Australian Information Commissioner Pilgrim in March decided the letter sought under the Freedom of Information Act by Opposition front bencher Joel Fitzgibbon (and seperately by the Herald and Weekly Times) was not exempt. As Aston writes: Mr Joyce's department fought that ruling, spent $80,000 on engaging Ernst & Young to review its public information processes, and then fought the matter through the Administrati...

This post four years ago commented on the cringe-worthy news that Governor General's official correspondence with the Queen after the event is packed off to archives at Buckingham Palace and beyond reach of Australian disclosure laws. Now it emerges that GG Kerr's 1975 correspondence with the Palace that he designated personal is 'private' in the hands of National Archives Australia, not part of official Commonwealth records and subject to normal archives disclosure rules, is embargoed until at least 2027, and the Queen's private secretary holds a final veto over release even after that date. Shoulders to the wheel folks-If you can contribute to the out of pockets for this legal challenge to quaint ancient world notions of British crown privilege, it's a worthy cause.  $17 k and counting....     

From Senate Estimates (pdf) questioning of Attorney General Senator Brandis and Australian Information Commissioner Timothy Pilgrim (pp 63-67) on Tuesday: Cease fire at last : Attorney General Brandis no longer thinks, as he did until M ay this year at least , that abolishing the OAIC would be a " good economy measure. " I n response to questions about the change of mind he said " I am not going to comment on decisions in previous financial years that have  been reversed. I do not think that is germane.... A policy was made in a previous financial year, essentially for reasons of economy. That decision was revisited more recently and reversed, and I am glad that it was, and I am really delighted that Mr Pilgrim's position has been regularised." ( Comment: Welcome news. But no questions or statements about the damage inflicted by two years of siege that followed the announcement of May 2014 that the government intended to abolish the office.) No intention of...

Not much of a record here among journalists of 'joint shoulders to the wheel' to assist all-comers and particularly those in their ranks to broaden and improve Freedom of Information use, skills and opportunities. It's a different matter elsewhere. In the US the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press established 46 years ago provides pro bono legal representation and other legal resources to protect First Amendment freedoms and the newsgathering rights of journalists. It has just launched a beta of its anticipated new project, the FOIA Wiki , a collaborative FOIA resource that “is part legal guide, part community space for sharing information that aims to serve as a central hub on all manner of issues surrounding FOIA as the law celebrates its 50th anniversary.” Features of the FOIA Wiki include: Pages on all aspects of FOIA, including exemptions, fees, and administrative issues. Thanks to a collaboration with the FOIA Project at the Transactional Records Access Cl...

From Toby Mendel, chair of the Steering Committee for FOI Advocates Network , a consortium of activists whichI and others in Australia belong: As many of you know, the SDGs have been adopted and SDG Target 16.10 is as follows: “Ensure public access to information and protect fundamental freedoms, in accordance with national legislation and international agreements”. While the indicators for this target have not yet been finally decided, one is very likely to be: “Number of countries that adopt and implement constitutional, statutory and/or policy guarantees for public access to information.” On 19 Sept., UNESCO held a meeting of experts to discuss how to assess this indicator, with two members of FOIAnet present, myself and Gilbert Sendugwa. They have already determined that it could be broken down into three sub-questions, namely: 1) whether the country has adopted guarantees; 2) the extent to which those guarantees are in line with international standards (based on the language in th...

 The Mandarin (subscription) Last Thursday, Attorney-General George Brandis confirmed once again that the current government sees little value in the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, which oversees both freedom of information and privacy. In announcing Timothy Pilgrim’s re-appointment as privacy commissioner, Brandis confirmed Pilgrim is now also the permanent Information Commissioner, a role he has acted in since July 2015. The announcement confirms the current government has no intention to appoint two separate commissioners, as the office was originally intended to have. Brandis gave no indication he intends to appoint anyone as FOI Commissioner, leaving the third post in the OAIC still vacant for the time being.... On a related topic, The Mandarin reports University of Melbourne data and privacy researcher Dr Suelette Dreyfus...sees an inconsistency in the attitudes of politicians and public servants to privacy in different contexts. In FOI releases, public s...

The Canberra Times Public Eye reflects on how the public is the loser from government saves of $700k by appointing one commissioner instead of three to the Office of Australian Information Commissioner: Long-time privacy watchdog Timothy Pilgrim was appointed Information Commissioner last week , a role he'd acted in for more than a year. He certainly deserves the honour. However, he doesn't deserve the government's treatment of him and his office. Pilgrim has been left to fill three statutory roles for the price of one: Information Commissioner, Privacy Commissioner and (acting) FOI Commissioner. This is despite the relevant legislation clearly intending that the jobs be held by different people. The good news is that Pilgrim is saving us money. The three officers' salary packages total $1,175,050, while Pilgrim receives just $443,910. That's a $731,140 gift to taxpayers. (Thanks, Tim!) The bad news is that, whatever Pilgrim's abilities, none of his roles will...

The announcement last week by Attorney General George Brandis of the appointment of Timothy Pilgrim as Australian Information Commissioner and the renewal of his appointment as Privacy Commissioner brings a degree of certainty to the operations of the Office of Australian Information Commissioner after the wrecking ball launched in May 2014 when the Attorney General announced the office was to be abolished. While the return to certainty is welcome, and Timothy Pilgrim is a fine public servant the appointment is far from sufficient to re-establish the o ffice on the fully operational, fully funded, firm footing required after the battering of the last two and a half years. The announcement makes no mention of the Freedom of Information Commissioner post. The OAIC website says "Mr Pilgrim will carry out functions and exercise relevant Commissioner powers under the Privacy Act 1988 , Freedom of Information Act 1982 and the Australian Information Commissioner Act 2010 ."  Who ...