Speaker 1: I'm Daniel James and you're listening to seven AM in
Speaker 1: opposition Anthony Alberinez. He said Scott Morrison led the culture secrecy.
Speaker 2: We're shining sunlight on a shadow government that preferred to
Speaker 2: operate in.
Speaker 1: Darkness, but now in power, he's copying Morrison's playbook. His
Speaker 1: government is planning to weaken our freedom of information laws,
Speaker 1: laws which are meant the whole government's accountable, giving the
Speaker 1: public access to documents that show how and why decisions
Speaker 1: are made. The changes will limit who makes requests, expand
Speaker 1: what stays secret, and make it harder the challenge refusals.
Speaker 1: The government says it's a bad efficiency. Others say it
Speaker 1: was undermining a core principle of democracy. Today former Senator
Speaker 1: and transparency advocate Rex Patrick on the proposed FOI reforms
Speaker 1: and the culture of secrecy plaguing Australian governments. It's Monday,
Speaker 1: September fifteenth, Rex, Thanks for joining us. During your time
Speaker 1: in Federal Parliament you became known as the transparency warrior,
Speaker 1: and since leaving Parliament you've stayed an advocate in the space.
Speaker 1: What is transparency such a key issue for you?
Speaker 3: Well, transparency is a really important part of our democracy.
Speaker 3: Everything the government does it does for public purpose and
Speaker 3: on the public coin, and so we own the information
Speaker 3: that the government has. Now, there are, of course things
Speaker 3: that we don't want to be made public in a
Speaker 3: general sense. One could imagine our defense secrets, police operational information.
Speaker 3: But information is the currency of power in a democracy. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I was seeking access to at the moment, what are
Speaker 3: the government's plans in to the high level radioactive waste
Speaker 3: that will result from ORCUS. Now, I think that's a
Speaker 3: really reasonable thing for people in the Australian public to
Speaker 3: know about the government has fought tooth and nail for
Speaker 3: me not to get access to that. And I'm not
Speaker 3: after secrets of how the reactor works or anything to
Speaker 3: do with the operational characteristics of the summer. And I
Speaker 3: want to know where they're going to put the waste
Speaker 3: and how they're going to determine where they're going to
Speaker 3: put the waste. And I'm in the Federal Court at
Speaker 3: the moment trying to get access to that document. And
Speaker 3: it's a document I just think the public ought to
Speaker 3: be able to see.
Speaker 1: Right So on some matters, even though the laws are
Speaker 1: to give citizens a right to access information, there are
Speaker 1: still barriers. What else have you personally experienced in terms
Speaker 1: of trying to get information out of government?
Speaker 3: Generally there's a reluctance for people or officials to disclose
Speaker 3: information and that's not the way should be, and it's
Speaker 3: quite problematic. I'll give you an extreme case where I
Speaker 3: sought access to a document that was written by Christian Porter,
Speaker 3: the Attorney General at the time, and to Prime Minister
Speaker 3: Scott Morrison. It was a two page letter of advice
Speaker 3: as to whether Senator Bridget mackenzie had complied with the
Speaker 3: law in relation to what is known colloquially as the
Speaker 3: Sports Roots affair.
Speaker 4: Bridget mackenzie has quit cabinet and resigned as Deputy National's
Speaker 4: Leader in the wake of the so called Sports Roots affair.
Speaker 4: A report by the Prime Minister's Department found the senator
Speaker 4: breach Minister or standards by failing to disclose her membership
Speaker 4: of a gun club that received funding from the controversial
Speaker 4: grants program.
Speaker 3: The government spent five hundred and forty six thousand dollars
Speaker 3: opposing the release of the document, and in this instance,
Speaker 3: what the showed was that the Attorney General had told
Speaker 3: the Prime Minister that everything was in order. Now I've
Speaker 3: shown that letter to lawyers barristers who just say the
Speaker 3: advice was wrong and it took me a long time
Speaker 3: to get access to that.
Speaker 1: How long did it take to get access to that
Speaker 1: rex It.
Speaker 3: Took about four years to get access to it. And
Speaker 3: they're the extreme links that governments go to to try
Speaker 3: and stop people being able to see what government's doing
Speaker 3: and the basis upon which they're acting.
Speaker 1: And now the government has decided it's time for Australia's
Speaker 1: freedom of information laws to be reformed. So what changes
Speaker 1: are they proposing.
Speaker 3: Well, we know that the FOI system is broken and
Speaker 3: the government has introduced a bill which seeks to make
Speaker 3: the FI better for government and make it worse for
Speaker 3: the public.
Speaker 5: Attorney General Michelle Roland says the move is necess to
Speaker 5: stop the deluge of requests slowing down government agencies.
Speaker 6: The purpose of this bill is to ensure the system
Speaker 6: is fit for purpose in twenty twenty five and beyond.
Speaker 3: This bill seeks to expand the stope of exemptions that
Speaker 3: are currently in place.
Speaker 5: The legislation will also make it harder to access some documents,
Speaker 5: with tougher rules around cabinet confidentiality.
Speaker 3: The areas in which that's occurring relate to the Cabinet Convention,
Speaker 3: which is now expanding to include pretty much any document
Speaker 3: that Cabinet talks about. And the other big area is
Speaker 3: a provision that will allow the government to exempt information
Speaker 3: that would, if disclosed, chill the advice of public servants.
Speaker 3: You could imagine any piece of advice that's controversial. They
Speaker 3: will say, well, if you disclose this, we will be
Speaker 3: able to give ministers good advice the future. So they've
Speaker 3: introduced things like chargers Minister Farrell.
Speaker 7: That relates to the fact that in twenty twenty four
Speaker 7: public servants spent more than one million hours processing FOI requests.
Speaker 3: If only remove the ability for someone to make an
Speaker 3: anonymous FOI request.
Speaker 7: Anonymous FOI requests are no longer going to be permitted,
Speaker 7: genuine FOI requests are prioritized, and taxpayers money is saved
Speaker 7: on frivolous and automated requests.
Speaker 3: They've done things like propose that a decision maker is
Speaker 3: not to be named. The Parliament in nineteen eighty two
Speaker 3: gave us a right to access to information, and the
Speaker 3: government now thinks it's okay for someone to strip that
Speaker 3: right from us and not be named. That does very
Speaker 3: little to encourage the decision maker to actually make a
Speaker 3: good decision.
Speaker 1: Coming up, why transparency is only ever shadowed from opposition.
Speaker 6: In one instance, a small agency received nearly six hundred
Speaker 6: FOI requests in a short period of time from an
Speaker 6: automated generator. This resulted in the diversion of an entire
Speaker 6: public service team from their work for more than three months. Now,
Speaker 6: mister speaker, you may ask who that agency is. That
Speaker 6: agency was e Safety, whose core mission is to keep
Speaker 6: astray and children.
Speaker 1: Safe home rex. The government says there are a number
Speaker 1: of reasons these reforms are needed. It says there's a
Speaker 1: deluge or requests which is slowing down government agencies. It
Speaker 1: says the system is costly, and Health Minister Mark Butler
Speaker 1: even said that we don't know where all the request
Speaker 1: where they're actually coming from, and there may be link
Speaker 1: to criminal gains and foreign actors. So what do you
Speaker 1: make of the government's reason.
Speaker 3: Look, I don't really have an issue with the government
Speaker 3: basically checking the bona fides of an applicant. The real
Speaker 3: problem for me is I do make FOIS on behalf
Speaker 3: of people, and those people may be whistleblowers. Those people
Speaker 3: may be businesses that simply fear retribution if they make
Speaker 3: inquiries to departments. As sad as that may sound, so
Speaker 3: we do need the ability in some way to allow
Speaker 3: for legitimate third parties to make FOI applications. But there
Speaker 3: are issues like so, for example, the government talks about
Speaker 3: the cost of FOIS. I've already indicated to you that
Speaker 3: for a two page document they were prepared to spend
Speaker 3: more than half a million dollars to keep the document's secret.
Speaker 3: Now I keep a tab on how much the government
Speaker 3: has been spending on resisting me, and the tally at
Speaker 3: this point in time is one point six million dollars
Speaker 3: spent losing to me on FOI. So if you want
Speaker 3: to talk about costs, be more transparent. They've turned the
Speaker 3: whole FOI process into this nightmare of bureaucracy. And that's
Speaker 3: not the cause of members of the public. That's the
Speaker 3: cultural problem that exists inside government with they're just shy
Speaker 3: of releasing anything that might be in any way controversial
Speaker 3: or cause an adverse media article or something like that.
Speaker 3: You know, it's not the principle that the Act was
Speaker 3: established on, which is basically to say that we should
Speaker 3: be able to see generally most of the information that
Speaker 3: government has.
Speaker 1: So these changes now basically formalizing the culture of fruit
Speaker 1: of information with new principles that enshrine that culture.
Speaker 3: We'll give you one example of one of the changes
Speaker 3: right now. If you do an FI, government officials often say,
Speaker 3: if we were to release this information, it would cause
Speaker 3: a chilling effect on our advice moving forward. We wouldn't
Speaker 3: be quite as forthright in our advice if we know
Speaker 3: that it can be disclosed. But the Public Service Act
Speaker 3: requires that public servants always give the best possible advice.
Speaker 3: They're required to be professional, have integrity, act with honesty,
Speaker 3: and the Act actually specifies that they must give a
Speaker 3: political evidence based frank advice. Now, what the government's done
Speaker 3: is now trying to put into law something that says
Speaker 3: if the advice would chill advice, then it can't access,
Speaker 3: can't be granted. Now, what that means is any controversial topic,
Speaker 3: no matter what it is, if it's controversial, or they
Speaker 3: will pull the frank and fearless argument. Now I have
Speaker 3: to ask how fearless is advice? If you fear the
Speaker 3: public seeing it, you should never want a minister to
Speaker 3: act on advice that the author is not prepared to
Speaker 3: be scrutinized. I mean, that's an outrageous situation.
Speaker 1: And you mentioned that. The other way this bill seeks
Speaker 1: to expand exemptions relates to cabinet confidentiality. So what cabinet
Speaker 1: discusses behind closed doors? So how are they looking to
Speaker 1: expand those laws?
Speaker 3: So when politicians meet in cabinet senior ministers, they make
Speaker 3: decisions and then they have to leave the cabinet room
Speaker 3: and implement those decisions by, for example, introducing legislation into
Speaker 3: the Parliament, or maybe getting their department to do something
Speaker 3: exercising ministrial power, or perhaps going to the Governor General
Speaker 3: through the Executive Council. Cabinet exemption is simply to make
Speaker 3: sure that we don't get to see the differing views
Speaker 3: of ministers. So we don't get to see the submission
Speaker 3: of the Finance minister, we don't get to see the
Speaker 3: submission of the Defense minister, because they may have differing views,
Speaker 3: and our cabinet's got to be seen as one on
Speaker 3: all issues. What the government now trying to do is
Speaker 3: change the definition completely and say that any issue that's
Speaker 3: been considered by cabinet then attracts an exemption.
Speaker 1: I mean, isn't that kind of like everything that the
Speaker 1: government does.
Speaker 3: It is an absolute assault on open and transparent government
Speaker 3: from a man mister Albanezi, who went into the election
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty two promising greater openness and transparency. It's
Speaker 3: actually a betrayal of the principles that he laid down.
Speaker 3: This bill is a shameful, shameful attack on the way
Speaker 3: in which our government is supposed to work and work
Speaker 3: for Australians.
Speaker 2: Australians have placed their trust in our new Labor government
Speaker 2: and I thank them for We are determined to repay
Speaker 2: that trust by demonstrating a commitment to transparency and integrity.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about that. The Alberdezer government campaigned on transparency,
Speaker 1: It attacked Scott Morrison's record on secrecy.
Speaker 2: Holding ourselves to a higher standard of behavior. Then it's
Speaker 2: not illegal.
Speaker 1: So what do you think they've essentially abandoned that position.
Speaker 3: I train a lot of Senator's officers in FOI, and
Speaker 3: just after the Liberal Party left and the Labor Party
Speaker 3: entered government, I had some of my former Senate colleagues
Speaker 3: saying to me, Rex, you wouldn't believe how secretive this
Speaker 3: government is. I think it's a natural thing to not
Speaker 3: want to have to be held accountable, and that's where
Speaker 3: the Parliament has to step up. And in this instance,
Speaker 3: the Parliament is being asked to erode some fundamental principles
Speaker 3: of democracy. We know that Anthony Alberezi is very concerned
Speaker 3: about being seen to honor his promises. This is an
Speaker 3: absolute breach and one of the things that will happen
Speaker 3: is that if these laws get passed, they will never
Speaker 3: get reversed because once they're passed, what will happen is
Speaker 3: that when the Liberal Party eventually get back into government,
Speaker 3: they are going to change it. There's a saying that
Speaker 3: I use all the time, transparency is a word only
Speaker 3: shouted from opposition benchers once you get into government. Actually,
Speaker 3: those pesky citizens, if they can just get out of
Speaker 3: our way, we want to do things that we want
Speaker 3: to do. So there is a real danger here that
Speaker 3: if this gets past, it will set back our democracy,
Speaker 3: our democracy a long long way. We live in an
Speaker 3: age where there's emails, where there's podcasts, where there's media,
Speaker 3: where there's social media, where it's really easy to get
Speaker 3: access to information, and the government now is basically saying, well,
Speaker 3: we've got to stymy this, We've got to stop this
Speaker 3: in some way, and it's the absolute antithesis of what
Speaker 3: technology has provided us now the ability to participate. They're
Speaker 3: trying to clamp down on that.
Speaker 1: Grex Patrick, thank you so much for.
Speaker 3: Your time and you're most welcome.
Speaker 1: Also in the news, the federal government has announced a
Speaker 1: twelve billion dollar boost to Australia's building and summarine capabilities
Speaker 1: support the Orchest Agreement. The government says the money we'll
Speaker 1: go towards the delivery of the Henderson Defense Precinct, a
Speaker 1: shipbuilding facility in Western Australia which will cost twenty five
Speaker 1: billion over the next decade and be used to build
Speaker 1: and sustain vessels and dock submarines. And there were scenes
Speaker 1: of violence of Melbourne, CBD on the weekend as anti
Speaker 1: government and anti racism protesters clashed. Opposing protests took place
Speaker 1: across all capital cities and some regional areas, with some
Speaker 1: marching in solidarity with Camp Sovereignty, an indigenous gathering place
Speaker 1: in Melbourne, CBD that was recently attacked by neo Nazis.
Speaker 1: Others were marching against immigration and perceived government corruption, with
Speaker 1: some protesters paying tribute to prominent far right US commentator
Speaker 1: Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated in Utah last week. I'm
Speaker 1: Daniel James. Thanks for listening. Seven am. Will be back
Speaker 1: tomorrow