Zali Steggall (Warringah, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

Freedom-of-information laws exist so that government decisions can be scrutinised and governments can be held to account. They are very important. They are an integral part of the commitment to the rule of law to facilitate access to information held by institutions and advice given to government. They are essential to hold power to account. In a representative democracy, the public and their representatives cannot make informed decisions without the best available information, and the public is entitled to know when government is not acting in the public interest.

My concern with the Freedom of Information Amendment Bill 2025, which is before the House, is that there's nothing in this bill that achieves those aims—in fact, to the contrary. This bill was drafted without consultation, introduced without transparency and designed in a way that rewards secrecy. At a time when public trust in government is already low, this legislation seeks to make it harder for Australians to access information and easier for government to hide it. This is not reform; this is regression.

The bill currently before us represents the biggest reform proposed to the freedom-of-information laws since the Hawke review in 2013. Freedom-of-information laws were introduced back in 1982 to give Australians the right to access government papers and documents and see how decisions are made and why—what the basis was, what information was available and what advice had been given. But, since then, we have seen successive governments erode those rights. We know that freedom of information is an area that is in need of reform. I don't dispute that. But it's really important, when you're talking about an instrument that holds government to account, to make sure that that reform is done transparently, with good consultation, and that we actually achieve the goals of creating a system that shines light on decisions of government, not one that increases secrecy.

The system remains characterised by significant delays attributed to extensive processing time, and it's shrouded in added secrecy. For the public, I would give you the comparison that it's as if there is a prima facie approach of blocking the provision of information: see if the request will go away, block it for as long as you possibly can, and then eventually papers might be released, but there's so much blacked out that it's ridiculous. The latest FOI annual report from the government shows that, during the first two years of the Albanese government, there were about 21,000 requests determined per year, the lowest rate since the Gillard government. And now, instead of addressing the issues—and there are issues in the system—the Albanese government has introduced sweeping changes that will tighten access even further and increase secrecy.

The government has raised concerns that the FOI regime is being overrun, and it has made allegations such as AI bots and foreign interference, but the documents provided in the inquiry in the other place show there's no evidence of this, so the justification that has been given for this legislation just has no proper foundation. The other reason the government has given is that the Public Service fears freedom-of-information requests and that this has a chilling effect on the advice to government from the Public Service due to fear that a freedom-of-information request will release documents or work done by the Public Service. Again, no evidence has actually been put forward by the government to substantiate this. In fact, that is contrary to the very requirements on the Public Service. The public Service Act requires frank and fearless advice in the public interest. In fact, the 2019 Thodey review, which quotes Peter Shergold's 2015 report, includes recommendations to strengthen the obligation on the Public Service to act and provide frank and fearless advice in the public interest. Neither of those two previous reviews has had its recommendations followed up, introduced or moved into that act yet. In fact, secrecy will do nothing to implement those recommendations or help meet that requirement on the Public Service, because in fact now there will be no way of checking that the Public Service is giving frank and fearless advice in the public interest.

The government has introduced this bill under a pretext that it will modernise the freedom-of-information system to enable more efficient and better-quality decisions or that it will help foster public trust in government decision-making through transparency and access to information. What a load of rubbish! Every group, from media to not-for-profit groups, has called the government out on that claim and argued that there is nothing in this bill that will achieve that goal. In fact, it's been unanimously rejected. Groups from the Centre for Public Integrity to the Law Council are all arguing that the government, through this Freedom of Information Reform Bill, is actually increasing secrecy and reducing accountability.

Instead, what this bill does is to impose new application fees that will deter ordinary Australians from lodging requests.

It expands cabinet exemptions, and that is the most concerning aspect because it will shield even more decisions of government from public scrutiny. I haven't heard a single member of the government give a valid reason why that expansion should go ahead—why we should be shielding more of the decisions and not having access to the underlying documents that are necessary to properly hold government decision-making to account. In fact, this directly contradicts the 57th recommendation of the robodebt royal commission, which specifically stated that cabinet confidentiality should only apply where it is reasonably justified in the public interest. Instead, the government here is expanding cabinet exemptions—in complete contradiction—to cover any documents that were shared in the drafting of cabinet documents, which is precisely the opposite of what Commissioner Holmes recommended.

Now, I was in this place when the Labor Party, then in opposition, cried blue murder around the coalition and the whole scandal of robodebt and did great work to then expose the horrors of robodebt. But now, seated on the government benches, it is doing the very thing that the commissioner has said not to do. Expanding the cabinet exemption is not going to result in transparency and accountability of decision-making; it will do the very opposite.

The government claims that the bill looks to better the balance between open access to information and the interests of protecting the proper functioning of government. But this legislation is adding new grounds of refusal, giving departments more power to withhold information. How is that increasing or improving the balance as to access and open information—as to holding government to account?

The bill looks to amend the objects provision to expand a level of discretion that explicitly recognises that the core reasoning for the Freedom of Information Act involves a balancing of the competing interests of open access to information and the essential interests of government. As to this change that the government is now proposing, the Law Council—we're not talking about some overly progressive organisation that shoots from the hip and makes outrageous comments; we're talking about the Law Council here, which is looking at the proper accountability of government and the proper functioning of laws—said in a submission to the Senate inquiry on this bill that safeguards to protect essential interests are good and required. But they already exist in the act. There has been no evidence put forward by the government to suggest that the current safeguards are not adequate and operating as they should. In fact, what is being proposed is really an attack on the underlying purpose of the freedom-of-information regime and its call to a responsible and representative democratic system of government.

The bill also prohibits anonymous requests, and it's done on the basis that somehow this is a national security issue—that we have foreign actors and foreign nations issuing these secret and anonymous freedom-of-information requests—but, again, no evidence of that has been provided. The bill, in prohibiting anonymous requests, could endanger whistleblowers and silence legitimate inquiries. We know whistleblowers laws still have not been fixed up to provide protection.

We know accountability matters. Australian voters care about transparency and accountability. It's just so disappointing to see the way the government is going about this legislation and what it is proposing to do with freedom-of-information laws. It's deeply concerning. The government has claimed this is important due to the increase of bots, automation and international interference, but no-one is buying that argument. The public is under no illusion—this is about increasing secrecy and decreasing government accountability.

Even the process of how this legislation has found its way to the House is telling. These reforms were developed without public consultation—no exposure draft; no engagement with civil society; no opportunity for media organisations, integrity experts or transparency advocates to comment, to really try and fix this, to actually build a freedom-of-information system that is genuine and has integrity. It's a secrecy that allowed robodebt to fester for so long and shielded wrongdoing. And that cost lives. Many in this place would have gone to their communities, calling out the horrors of that; yet now here we are, entrenching a system that will increase secrecy. We should have learnt, and government should have learnt, from that experience—from robodebt—that we need more transparency and more accountability, not less.

There is a better way to improve the freedom of information system. First, we can engage in an independent review and genuine consultation with experts and the public, before introducing reforms through a freedom of information bill. Second, we can remove the anonymous request provision and, instead, consider establishing a mechanism whereby an applicant can make an anonymous request through an independent intermediary, such as the Commonwealth Ombudsman. Third, we have to review cabinet exemptions, aligning them with the public interest, not political convenience. These are the kinds of reforms that would restore trust, reduce delays and promote transparency, and that's what Australians expect and deserve.

This bill, as it stands, sends a dangerous message: that secrecy is acceptable—that transparency is optional. So that is the message we will take from the Albanese government, from all the members of the government: that transparency is optional—that holding government to account on its decision-making on the advice it receives is optional. Already, by others—not even just those here in this place—the Albanese government has been described as one of the most secretive in modern history, refusing more freedom of information requests than it fully grants, and this bill doubles down on that trend. It is deeply disappointing, and I cannot, in good conscience, support this legislation.

Debate adjourned.

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