Gabriel Ng (Menzies, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak in favour of the Freedom of Information Bill 2025. The Freedom of Information Act is over 40 years old—even older than me, and that is saying something! In 1982, when the Freedom of Information Act was legislated, the first computers were just being invented, there were no electronic records, and we were on the cusp of entering the first glorious years of the Hawke government. This bill creates the necessary and overdue reform to our freedom of information laws, which are a cornerstone of a transparent and accountable government.

Since its election, the Albanese Labor government have demonstrated time and time again our commitment to restoring trust and integrity in government. We understand that governments must be willing to be open to public scrutiny and answerable to public accountability. The freedom of information regime is vital to the functioning of our democracy. It allows members of the public to better understand government. It provides people the opportunity to obtain personal information held by government agencies, including decision records from Centrelink and immigration and other government services, so that they can understand and, if they feel the need, appeal decisions that have profound effects on their lives—for example, whether or not they are allowed to access family tax benefits or be granted a visa to remain in Australia or be granted access to disability supports. The freedom of information regime also provides an important tool for the press to scrutinise government.

However, our freedom of information laws are no longer fit for purpose. Their outdatedness risks creating an unsustainable impost on public services and public resources as well as on the budget. The sheer volume of electronic records generated by public sector agencies would have been unimaginable for the drafters of the FOI Act. Some requests for freedom of information can be large and complex. There are also increasingly vexatious or frivolous requests. This is exacerbated by the fact that the current FOI laws allow requests to be lodged anonymously, creating the risk that this could be exploited by offshore actors and through the use of Al. We now have agencies like the Department of Home Affairs holding close to one billion records in a single system. In 2023-24, the Commonwealth spent $86.2 million processing FOI requests, which was a 23 per cent increase on the year before. Public servants spent more than one million hours on FOI processing in that year alone. We cannot continue on that trajectory. That is one million hours that these public servants could have spent delivering services to people. This was one million hours not spent on assessing payments, helping veterans, helping migrants, processing visas or helping a business or a community organisation.

When every request, no matter how broad or vexatious or repetitive, must be treated the same way, the system is pulled away from genuine applicants. We also know—and it is time to say this plainly—that FOI is not always being used in the public interest. It is sometimes used as a political tool to tie up agencies. It is sometimes used to harass or contact public servants in unacceptable ways. It is sometimes used anonymously, which creates a serious integrity risk in a world where hostile actors can automate requests on a large scale. The current act did not anticipate any of that. Our job is to fix it.

The bill does not walk away from transparency; it restores it. It restores it by making the system workable again so that real requests can be answered in a reasonable time. It restores it by making sure public money is spent on access to information that Australians actually need, not on administration generated by automated systems or by repeat applicants. It restores it by protecting public servants, who should not have their names and personal details published in ways that expose them to abuse.

The bill does four important things: it modernises the framework, it streamlines access requests, it protects the integrity of cabinet-level decision-making and it implements longstanding recommendations from the 2013 Hawke review that every government since has been told to deal with. First, in regard to modernisation, we are making the foundations of the freedom of information laws fit for purpose. This bill will update the objects of the act so that it is clear that FOI is about both accountable government and effective government. It clarifies what is and is not a document of an agency. If something on a government system is purely personal and has nothing to do with the conduct of public business, it should not be dragged into FOI. This protects staff and keeps the act focused on government work.

Second, it streamlines access. This bill deals with the practical reality that agencies are being swamped. It modernises how FOI and review applications can be lodged with the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner. That will allow early triage and better digital processing. It ensures that employee-identifying information does not have to be published in every notice or release, except where there is a proper reason. That protects the safety and privacy of staff, which is increasingly important when requests are used to target individuals. We are also tackling abuse of process. Agencies will be able to decline requests that are vexatious, frivolous, harassing or simply an attempt to swamp the system. That power will itself be reviewable by the Information Commissioner so that accountability is preserved.

The bill also ends anonymous FOI applications. An applicant will have to provide their name, and, if they are acting for somebody else, they will have to say so. This is a sensible reform. It prevents misuse, including by offshore actors, and it allows agencies to identify where one person is lodging multiple related requests to overwhelm public services.

The bill deals with practical refusals and the use of public resources. We are clarifying how the existing practical refusal provisions operate and how the Information Commissioner should handle reviews of those decisions. More importantly, it introduces a discretionary 40-hour processing cap, as recommended by the Hawke review. This is a real balance point. Applicants retain the right to seek information and agencies retain the obligation to provide it. However, where a single request would take days and days of an officer's time, the agency can limit it, explain why and then get on with the other important work they do in serving the public. Forty hours is a pretty reasonable amount of time to be able to spend on a single FOI request. This is good administration.

This legislation will also improve the review processes. It stops concurrent internal and Information Commissioner reviews, which only create delay and confusion. It streamlines extensions of time. It confirms that an agency still has to make decisions, even if the deadline has passed, so applicants are not left in limbo—they're not left waiting too long. It also moves timeframes from calendar days to working days, reflecting how the Public Service actually operates. These are small-sounding changes but, together, they remove friction from the system, increase productivity and make the system more efficient.

We are also improving the operation of the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner. The bill gives the Information Commissioner the power to remit matters back to agencies with directions. That means a matter can be fixed where it started, instead of sitting in a long queue. It allows matters to be resolved by agreement, which is faster and cheaper than a full written decision. It limits automatic parties in a review to the applicant and respondent, which removes unnecessary complexity while still allowing affected third parties to apply to join. All of this will allow the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner to focus on real disputes and systemic issues instead of procedural clutter.

Another important question is regarding fees. Schedule 6 of the FOI bill allows an application fee to be set in regulations for FOI requests, internal reviews and Information Commissioner reviews. Every other Australian jurisdiction except for the ACT already has some form of fee. The Commonwealth is the outlier here. A modest fee helps to deter frivolous or automated requests that chew up time and money. At the same time, the bill is crystal clear that requests for a person's own personal information will not attract a fee. I'll say that again because I think there has been misinformation on this point: the bill is clear that requests for a person's own personal information will not attract a fee. In 2023-24, around 72 per cent of FOI requests were for personal information, so those requests will not attract a fee. Three out of four requests will still be free. There will be a provision for fee waivers, including for financial hardship. The principle of access is preserved and the principle of responsible use of public resources is also preserved.

I want to turn to cabinet documents, because some on the crossbench and in parts of the community have been raising this. When the FOI Act was first introduced, Senator Durack said, 'The general right of access must be limited for the protection of essential public interest.' That was true in 1981 and it is still true now. Cabinet confidentiality is really important to the proper functioning of government. Ministers must be able to test proposals, disagree, change their minds and finally reach a collective position. If every step of that process is exposed in real time, cabinet becomes performance not deliberation, advice becomes cautious, and collective responsibility weakens. Schedule 7 therefore clarifies the cabinet exemption so it protects what it is meant to protect and only that. It responds to the 2023 royal commission into the robodebt scheme, which identified that simply putting the word 'cabinet' on a document is not enough. This bill makes that plain. The content and the purpose of the document determine whether the exemption applies, not a label. That is a fair outcome. It protects cabinet where necessary and it prevents the misuse of the exemption. This is an important clarification of a term that has been ambiguous for a long time.

Finally, this bill deals with what happens when a minister leaves office or changes portfolio. There has been uncertainty since the recent Federal Court decision. The bill sets out practical processes so outgoing ministers can facilitate access and so incoming ministers are not put in the position of deciding on sensitive material from a previous government. That respects long-standing convention and it gives applicants certainty.

This bill is not about making it harder for Australians to get information; it is about making it possible for Australians to get information in a system that is being overwhelmed by claims that do not reflect the genuine needs of members of the community to have access to documents regarding personal information, that do not reflect the genuine needs of the press to properly scrutinise government and that do not reflect the genuine needs of members of the community and community organisations to better understand government decisions.

As I said before, for the number of requests we receive, the amount of resources that are going into meeting these requests is not sustainable. It is increasing at a significant rate, and we want to make sure public resources are used for what they are supposed to be used for. It's also about protecting public servants, keeping up with technology and making sure that FOI in 2025 and the years to come looks like a tool of democracy and not a tool of disruption. Transparency must work in practice, not only in theory.

The bill delivers that. It modernises the act, implements the Hawke review, future-proofs the system against automated abuse and keeps personal access free for the vast majority of applicants. It makes reviews faster. More importantly, it puts genuine applicants back at the centre of the FOI system. That is what good government looks like. It's transparent, accessible and effective. I commend the bill to the chamber.

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