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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