Labor plans FOI changes which would make it harder to access data

ABC NEWS (Australia)

The federal government is introducing a bill into parliament today aimed at tightening freedom of information laws, known as FOI. It says the system's outdated and clogged with trivial requests, but critics warn the changes will come at the cost of transparency.

Transcript

00:00What the government's seeking to do here is to apply a fee of $30 to $60 for each application

00:09made under freedom of information laws to access documents.

00:14People requesting documents relating to themselves would not have to pay that fee.

00:19Now, the fees in themselves are not new, more broadly speaking.

00:24Every state and territory apart from the ACT does charge when somebody applies to those

00:29states and territory for those documents, whether they're about themselves or something else

00:36that's in the government's remit.

00:38But the government's seeking to make that change.

00:40They say it is to address what has been seen as a series of vexatious or frivolous applications

00:49for documents that are holding up the work of the department, adding extra hours and

00:55hours to their workload.

00:57But they're also seeking to clarify, as they put it, when certain exclusions would apply,

01:05meaning that documents don't have to be made public.

01:08One of those exclusions is cabinet confidentiality.

01:12They say that this is in response to some issues that were raised about that during several

01:18royal commissions, including the royal commission into robo-debt.

01:23But both transparency advocates and the opposition, as well as independents, have questioned this.

01:28They've labelled it a tax on transparency and also said that this risks making it even harder

01:36for people to find out about the decisions of government.

01:42The process as it stands is not particularly straightforward.

01:46When you apply for a document under freedom of information, you need to be really specific

01:51about what you're looking for in order to sort of limit the scope of a request so you don't get a whole

02:01ream or reams and reams of paper in response or simply that request denied.

02:07So this could make it more difficult for people looking to find out about government decisions.

02:12Gemma?

02:14OK.

02:15All right.

02:16Of course you're about to struggle.

02:18Actually, let's feel that you're looking to construct the exact correctness level of a

02:34change.

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