ACT government moves to delay start date for new freedom of information laws
Kirsten Lawson
The ACT government is delaying the introduction of new freedom of information legislation till next year.
The government is also moving to limit freely available "open access" information to information created after the start date in January 2018.
ACT Attorney-General Gordon Ramsay: Delaying the start of new freedom of information laws till January. Photo: Karleen MinneyThe ACT parliament passed new freedom of information laws last year after years of attempts by the Greens to persuade Labor to support a much more open regime, and then a long list of last-minute negotiations and amendments on the floor of the parliament.
The new laws were to take effect on July 1, but last week Attorney-General Gordon Ramsay introduced amendments to push the start date back to January 2018.
He also moved to limit "open access" to information that comes into existence when the new regime begins in 2018.
Open access information includes technical and scientific reports prepared for government, information about ministerial and staff travel, ministers' diaries including all appointments and meetings, minutes of meetings and reports of government boards and panels, summaries of cabinet decisions, and the triple bottom line assessment for cabinet decisions.
Incoming ministerial briefs, parliamentary estimates briefs, annual reports briefs and question time briefs must also be published openly three years after they were created.
Mr Ramsay's amendment will mean that information is only freely available online if it was created after January 2018. He said the restriction was necessary to ensure the scheme was feasible to implement. Open access information must be formatted for online publication, and the change would "avoid any suggestion that public service agencies will have to retrieve paper files from the past and scan them as part of the scheme".
The laws were passed in August last year.
Mr Ramsay said the start date was being pushed back to give the public service more time to prepare, including changing internal guidelines and processes for responding to FOI requests and recruiting staff. The new scheme was significantly different from the current FOI scheme and involved a substantial new role for the ombudsman, he said.
The Greens have agreed to the delay, a spokeswoman saying the party understood the complexities of getting the new scheme up and running.
"We are aware that the community is keen for key provisions such as the open access scheme and the public interest test to be in place, but we are also aware of the level of work to be done at the back end for the government to be able to deliver these substantial reforms," she said.
The new freedom of information laws create a "push" model for information, where information is assumed to be available to the public. It allows informal release without forcing people to go through the formal hoops of an FOI request. And it spells out that decisions should be made "with a pro-disclosure bias".
Information can only be withheld if it is contrary to the public interest to release it.
Cabinet information is still kept secret, along with personal information and legal information.
When deciding whether something is in the public interest to release, authorities can take into account whether release would prejudice a deliberative process of government; the collective responsibility of cabinet; trade secrets, business affairs or research of an agency or person; the ability of an agency to obtain confidential information; the competitive commercial activities of an agency; the impact on the economy, as well as a range of other categories.
Each agency must appoint an information officer to manage the release of information.
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