Anne Stanley (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Deputy Speaker Wilkie, I promise not to make any of the same comments about your contribution to this place. I rise to make my contribution to the Freedom of Information Amendment Bill 2025. The Freedom of Information Amendment Bill 2025 would amend the Freedom of Information Act 1982 to improve the operation of the freedom of information framework through reducing system inefficiencies, providing clarity of the law and addressing abuse of the processes that impact on people's right to access information.

The bill responds to recommendations from a number of previous reviews and inquiries that have made recommendations for reform of the freedom of information system. This includes the Freedom of Information Act 1982, the Australian Information Commissioner Act 2010 and recommendations from the 2013 Hawke inquiry. It also makes amendments that go beyond recommendations of these reviews.

The proposed amendments would amend the cabinet exemption to clarify its operation. This ensures that it operates to appropriately protect information central to the cabinet process and ensure that the principle of collective ministerial responsibility is not undermined. It would also amend the public interest test as it relates to the deliberative processes exemption to clarify public interest factors which weigh against disclosure of deliberative material. These factors will include prejudicing the frank or timely provision of advice to or by an agency or minister, or prejudicing the orderly and effective conduct of a government decision-making process.

The bill provides for how the act applies to documents of a minister where a minister ceases to hold office or moves to a new portfolio, responding to a 2024 judicial decision which introduced some uncertainty in this area. The bill will also clarify issues around the definition of what is a document of a minister and provide that agencies should not be required to conduct searches for official documents of a minister hosted on agency systems.

The bill modernises aspects of the act and clarifies the law in certain areas to ensure efficient management of freedom of information applications. Furthermore, efficient management of reviews and complaints by agencies and Office of the Australian Information Commissioner addresses duplicative and inefficient processes. The bill strengthens the ability of government agencies to deal with vexatious and abusive requests and protects employees from harm, including by removing the ability of applicants to make FOI requests anonymously.

Additionally, it limits the circumstances in which agencies are required to release employee-identifying information captured in the freedom of information requests. The bill clarifies that information on agency or ministerial systems that contain personal or non-work related matters of staff are not captured in the definition of a document of an agency. The bill extends the timeframe for agency decisions to reflect working days and consultation processes to ensure high-quality original decision-making.

It also introduces a 40-hour processing time limit for FOIs. It creates a power in the act to enable to introduction of application fees for freedom of information requests, internal agency reviews and IC reviews. The bill was designed in close consultation with government agencies and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner. This was following considerations of recommendations from the independent statutory review of the FOI Act and the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee inquiry into the operation of the Commonwealth freedom of information laws in 2023. This bill builds upon existing regulation powers in the FOI Act.

The Freedom of Information Act was established 40 years ago, before the advent of common use of electronic documents, communications and records in the workplace. The rate and volume of electronic records generated today by public sector agencies would have been unimaginable when the Freedom of Information Act was first introduced. The freedom of information processing cost to agencies has been steadily increasing over time. In 2023-24, FOI processing was conservatively estimated to cost agencies $86.24 million—a 23 per cent increase on the year prior and more than double the $36.32 million in 2010-11. The government received over 34,000 requests for freedom of information in the 2023-24 year and spent over one million hours dealing with freedom of information requests in the same year.

Freedom of information requests are also being used in malicious ways to disrupt government operations and make contact with public servants in abusive, threatening and excessive ways. There are not inexhaustible government resources available to process large and complex requests or to process requests that are abusive to people and abusive to government processes. Providing access to information to those who genuinely are seeking it is inhibited by inefficient systems and processes and a tolerance of abuse in the system.

There is also a need to clarify the law following the decision of Patrick v Attorney-General [2024] FCFCA 126, which raises complex issues in respect of requests to ministers and the established convention that deliberative documents of previous governments are not provided to an incoming government. The reforms are also intended to provide transparency about who is seeking access to information held by the Australian government. This will help agencies understand where there might be involvement of foreign governments or foreign entities in a request and to appropriately manage any potential national security risks.

Freedom of information is a vital feature of democracy, promoting accountability and transparency of government decision-making. The government will improve the freedom of information system so genuine freedom of information requests are prioritised. I commend the bill to the House.

See this speech in context