I'm Daniel James and you're listening to seven AM in opposition Anthony Alberinez. He said Scott Morrison led the culture secrecy.
We're shining sunlight on a shadow government that preferred to operate in.
Darkness, but now in power, he's copying Morrison's playbook. His government is planning to weaken our freedom of information laws, laws which are meant the whole government's accountable, giving the public access to documents that show how and why decisions are made. The changes will limit who makes requests, expand what stays secret, and make it harder the challenge refusals. The government says it's a bad efficiency. Others say it
was undermining a core principle of democracy. Today former Senator and transparency advocate Rex Patrick on the proposed FOI reforms and the culture of secrecy plaguing Australian governments. It's Monday, September fifteenth, Rex, Thanks for joining us. During your time in Federal Parliament you became known as the transparency warrior, and since leaving Parliament you've stayed an advocate in the space. What is transparency such a key issue for you?
Well, transparency is a really important part of our democracy. Everything the government does it does for public purpose and on the public coin, and so we own the information that the government has. Now, there are, of course things that we don't want to be made public in a general sense. One could imagine our defense secrets, police operational information.
But information is the currency of power in a democracy. Yeah, I was seeking access to at the moment, what are the government's plans in to the high level radioactive waste that will result from ORCUS. Now, I think that's a really reasonable thing for people in the Australian public to know about the government has fought tooth and nail for me not to get access to that. And I'm not after secrets of how the reactor works or anything to
do with the operational characteristics of the summer. And I want to know where they're going to put the waste and how they're going to determine where they're going to put the waste. And I'm in the Federal Court at the moment trying to get access to that document. And it's a document I just think the public ought to be able to see.
Right So on some matters, even though the laws are to give citizens a right to access information, there are still barriers. What else have you personally experienced in terms of trying to get information out of government?
Generally there's a reluctance for people or officials to disclose information and that's not the way should be, and it's quite problematic. I'll give you an extreme case where I sought access to a document that was written by Christian Porter, the Attorney General at the time, and to Prime Minister Scott Morrison. It was a two page letter of advice as to whether Senator Bridget mackenzie had complied with the law in relation to what is known colloquially as the Sports Roots affair.
Bridget mackenzie has quit cabinet and resigned as Deputy National's Leader in the wake of the so called Sports Roots affair. A report by the Prime Minister's Department found the senator breach Minister or standards by failing to disclose her membership of a gun club that received funding from the controversial grants program.
The government spent five hundred and forty six thousand dollars opposing the release of the document, and in this instance, what the showed was that the Attorney General had told the Prime Minister that everything was in order. Now I've shown that letter to lawyers barristers who just say the advice was wrong and it took me a long time to get access to that.
How long did it take to get access to that rex It.
Took about four years to get access to it. And they're the extreme links that governments go to to try and stop people being able to see what government's doing and the basis upon which they're acting.
And now the government has decided it's time for Australia's freedom of information laws to be reformed. So what changes are they proposing.
Well, we know that the FOI system is broken and the government has introduced a bill which seeks to make the FI better for government and make it worse for the public.
Attorney General Michelle Roland says the move is necess to stop the deluge of requests slowing down government agencies.
The purpose of this bill is to ensure the system is fit for purpose in twenty twenty five and beyond.
This bill seeks to expand the stope of exemptions that are currently in place.
The legislation will also make it harder to access some documents, with tougher rules around cabinet confidentiality.
The areas in which that's occurring relate to the Cabinet Convention, which is now expanding to include pretty much any document that Cabinet talks about. And the other big area is a provision that will allow the government to exempt information that would, if disclosed, chill the advice of public servants. You could imagine any piece of advice that's controversial. They will say, well, if you disclose this, we will be
able to give ministers good advice the future. So they've introduced things like chargers Minister Farrell.
That relates to the fact that in twenty twenty four public servants spent more than one million hours processing FOI requests.
If only remove the ability for someone to make an anonymous FOI request.
Anonymous FOI requests are no longer going to be permitted, genuine FOI requests are prioritized, and taxpayers money is saved on frivolous and automated requests.
They've done things like propose that a decision maker is not to be named. The Parliament in nineteen eighty two gave us a right to access to information, and the government now thinks it's okay for someone to strip that right from us and not be named. That does very little to encourage the decision maker to actually make a good decision.
Coming up, why transparency is only ever shadowed from opposition.
In one instance, a small agency received nearly six hundred FOI requests in a short period of time from an automated generator. This resulted in the diversion of an entire public service team from their work for more than three months. Now, mister speaker, you may ask who that agency is. That agency was e Safety, whose core mission is to keep astray and children.
Safe home rex. The government says there are a number of reasons these reforms are needed. It says there's a deluge or requests which is slowing down government agencies. It says the system is costly, and Health Minister Mark Butler even said that we don't know where all the request where they're actually coming from, and there may be link to criminal gains and foreign actors. So what do you make of the government's reason.
Look, I don't really have an issue with the government basically checking the bona fides of an applicant. The real problem for me is I do make FOIS on behalf of people, and those people may be whistleblowers. Those people may be businesses that simply fear retribution if they make inquiries to departments. As sad as that may sound, so we do need the ability in some way to allow
for legitimate third parties to make FOI applications. But there are issues like so, for example, the government talks about the cost of FOIS. I've already indicated to you that for a two page document they were prepared to spend more than half a million dollars to keep the document's secret. Now I keep a tab on how much the government has been spending on resisting me, and the tally at this point in time is one point six million dollars spent losing to me on FOI. So if you want
to talk about costs, be more transparent. They've turned the whole FOI process into this nightmare of bureaucracy. And that's not the cause of members of the public. That's the cultural problem that exists inside government with they're just shy of releasing anything that might be in any way controversial or cause an adverse media article or something like that.
You know, it's not the principle that the Act was established on, which is basically to say that we should be able to see generally most of the information that government has.
So these changes now basically formalizing the culture of fruit of information with new principles that enshrine that culture.
We'll give you one example of one of the changes right now. If you do an FI, government officials often say, if we were to release this information, it would cause a chilling effect on our advice moving forward. We wouldn't be quite as forthright in our advice if we know that it can be disclosed. But the Public Service Act requires that public servants always give the best possible advice.
They're required to be professional, have integrity, act with honesty, and the Act actually specifies that they must give a political evidence based frank advice. Now, what the government's done is now trying to put into law something that says if the advice would chill advice, then it can't access, can't be granted. Now, what that means is any controversial topic, no matter what it is, if it's controversial, or they will pull the frank and fearless argument. Now I have
to ask how fearless is advice? If you fear the public seeing it, you should never want a minister to act on advice that the author is not prepared to be scrutinized. I mean, that's an outrageous situation.
And you mentioned that. The other way this bill seeks to expand exemptions relates to cabinet confidentiality. So what cabinet discusses behind closed doors? So how are they looking to expand those laws?
So when politicians meet in cabinet senior ministers, they make decisions and then they have to leave the cabinet room and implement those decisions by, for example, introducing legislation into the Parliament, or maybe getting their department to do something exercising ministrial power, or perhaps going to the Governor General through the Executive Council. Cabinet exemption is simply to make sure that we don't get to see the differing views
of ministers. So we don't get to see the submission of the Finance minister, we don't get to see the submission of the Defense minister, because they may have differing views, and our cabinet's got to be seen as one on all issues. What the government now trying to do is change the definition completely and say that any issue that's been considered by cabinet then attracts an exemption.
I mean, isn't that kind of like everything that the government does.
It is an absolute assault on open and transparent government from a man mister Albanezi, who went into the election in twenty twenty two promising greater openness and transparency. It's actually a betrayal of the principles that he laid down. This bill is a shameful, shameful attack on the way in which our government is supposed to work and work for Australians.
Australians have placed their trust in our new Labor government and I thank them for We are determined to repay that trust by demonstrating a commitment to transparency and integrity.
So let's talk about that. The Alberdezer government campaigned on transparency, It attacked Scott Morrison's record on secrecy.
Holding ourselves to a higher standard of behavior. Then it's not illegal.
So what do you think they've essentially abandoned that position.
I train a lot of Senator's officers in FOI, and just after the Liberal Party left and the Labor Party entered government, I had some of my former Senate colleagues saying to me, Rex, you wouldn't believe how secretive this government is. I think it's a natural thing to not want to have to be held accountable, and that's where the Parliament has to step up. And in this instance, the Parliament is being asked to erode some fundamental principles
of democracy. We know that Anthony Alberezi is very concerned about being seen to honor his promises. This is an absolute breach and one of the things that will happen is that if these laws get passed, they will never get reversed because once they're passed, what will happen is that when the Liberal Party eventually get back into government, they are going to change it. There's a saying that I use all the time, transparency is a word only
shouted from opposition benchers once you get into government. Actually, those pesky citizens, if they can just get out of our way, we want to do things that we want to do. So there is a real danger here that if this gets past, it will set back our democracy,
our democracy a long long way. We live in an age where there's emails, where there's podcasts, where there's media, where there's social media, where it's really easy to get access to information, and the government now is basically saying, well, we've got to stymy this, We've got to stop this in some way, and it's the absolute antithesis of what technology has provided us now the ability to participate. They're trying to clamp down on that.
Grex Patrick, thank you so much for.
Your time and you're most welcome.
Also in the news, the federal government has announced a twelve billion dollar boost to Australia's building and summarine capabilities support the Orchest Agreement. The government says the money we'll go towards the delivery of the Henderson Defense Precinct, a shipbuilding facility in Western Australia which will cost twenty five billion over the next decade and be used to build and sustain vessels and dock submarines. And there were scenes of violence of Melbourne, CBD on the weekend as anti
government and anti racism protesters clashed. Opposing protests took place across all capital cities and some regional areas, with some marching in solidarity with Camp Sovereignty, an indigenous gathering place in Melbourne, CBD that was recently attacked by neo Nazis. Others were marching against immigration and perceived government corruption, with some protesters paying tribute to prominent far right US commentator Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated in Utah last week. I'm
Daniel James. Thanks for listening. Seven am. Will be back tomorrow