Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Wentworth for her question and for her engagement on this issue, including yesterday, I think it was, when we had a meeting with other members about these issues. With regard to other reforms coming on top of our creation of a national anti-corruption commission and other reforms that we have already introduced, today the Attorney-General has announced consultation on stage 2 of public sector whistleblower reforms. That will be important going forward. As I indicated, that would come forward. Freedom of information is a vital part of our democracy, but, right now, the FOI system is broken. The current framework is stuck in the 1980s, and this was before new technology was there—before email, before smartphones—and we need to keep up with that.

Last year, public servants spent more than one million hours processing FOIs—not doing policy, not helping people out there with their issues; but going through FOIs.

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