Henry Pike (Bowman, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

As I was saying, the changes that the government are proposing through this legislation will reward delay and dysfunction, and I was explaining an example of an FOI request that I made recently. The government waited until the final day before asking for additional time. This happens all the time, and, unfortunately, what these proposals would do is only make that worse. It will extend the timeframes and make the system slower and less accountable.

We're also seeing a complete lack of public support for this bill. Every major integrity and transparency body has condemned this bill; none support it. I'll run through a few of those examples a bit later. It also contradicts Labor's integrity pledges. There was a lot made by this government in the lead-up to the last election, and the election before that, about transparency. Unfortunately, this is just delivering secrecy.

Non-disclosure agreements have become part and parcel of the way this government conducts business and conducts consultation with outside groups. We're seeing secret estimates manuals, and document refusals have become the norm. I think it's extra hypocritical that the government are bringing these forward when we've had so much comment from them in the lead-up to these elections about trying to restore and improve integrity, accountability and transparency.

I fear that this will damage public trust. Secrecy undermines democracy and prevents Australians from forming informed opinions about government. The FOI process is an important part of public trust. Anything that waters that down, making it less transparent and more secret, is not going to assist in building public trust around the federal government. This bill will also increase bureaucracy and legal complexity by introducing new thresholds, exemptions and caps. This is going to lead to more disputes, more appeals, more time tied up asking for appeals and reviews of decisions and far less transparency.

I want to read from an open letter, an advertisement, that was put in recently by a range of different groups who are all voicing their opposition to what the government here is proposing. This has been signed by the following groups: the Alliance for Journalists' Freedom, the Centre for Public Integrity, the Human Rights Law Centre, the Grata Fund and the Whistleblower Justice Fund. I'll read it verbatim because I think it's important that we understand where these groups are standing on this important area of government policy and also these reforms the government's proposing. They have written:

Freedom of information is a cornerstone of our democracy.

I think it's hard to argue with that. It certainly is the cornerstone of our democracy, and it's something that's utilised by so many different groups and media outlets to try to get to the bottom of government decision-making. I'll continue:

As voters, the Australian people must know what governments are doing. Without transparency, corruption remains hidden and public interest journalism goes unreported.

While Australia's existing FOI Act is in desperate need of updating, the Government's proposed FOI Amendment Bill fails to provide the necessary structural solutions.

Instead, it will make things worse, by making it harder to access information and creating more secrecy in government, not less.

I'll repeat that: more secrecy in government, not less.

The Bill's process also represents a grave integrity failure, with no public consultation or attempt to address the real issues applicants face with the current regime.

The government has also refused to provide Parliament and the public with any evidence to justify this move to secrecy.

P assage of this B ill would represent the greatest attack on transparency since the FOI Act was established.

We call on the Albanese government to withdraw the seriously flawed Freedom of Information Amendment Bill 2025 and urgently establish an independent and comprehensive review of Australia's freedom of information regime.

I think it's important to share that because it demonstrates what a lot of groups outside of this building are saying about these amendments.

We've also had criticism from the Australian Lawyers Alliance. They have observed that the government has tried to defend the changes within this legislation, noting that they're concerned about the impact that hostile foreign governments might have on the FOI process. The Australian Lawyers Alliance say:

… hostile foreign governments, big business and other well-resourced applicants will have no problems in meeting the $50 fees contemplated (but not yet published) and therefore such a fee will have no deterrent effect on these applications.

They also noted the processing cap and said:

… An obvious flaw in this system is with respect to how the proposed 40-hour ceiling would be calculated. The Bill does not make clear whether the cap applies to a single decision maker's processing time, or whether it is cumulative across multiple public servants. In practice, the ceiling could be reached quickly, where a decision is reviewed at multiple levels within an agency, or where consultation with the Minister or third parties is required. Without clear guidance and external scrutiny, applicants would have no way of verifying whether an agency's estimate is genuine and reasonable.

That's already a flaw within the current system. There is a lack of transparency around the current system on whether an agency's decision has been reached objectively. This of course would provide another area of confusion and another area where these agencies would have a greater ability to hold things up, and applicants will not be able to tell whether it's genuine or not.

The Law Council of Australia have also taken exception to the processing cap. They said:

… in practice, the impact of the processing cap will be heavily influenced by the efficiency, resourcing, and technological capability of individual agencies. Agencies with well-developed information management systems and experienced FOI teams may be better placed to process large or complex requests within the cap, whereas less-resourced agencies may be more likely to rely on the cap as a basis for practical refusal. This could result in inconsistent access outcomes across government, potentially undermining the objectives of the FOI Act.

Crikey, of course, provided a submission as well. It said:

The government's Freedom of Information Amendment Bill 2025 purports "to improve the operation of the FOI framework". From our perspective as a small independent news outlet, it does the very opposite.

I think that's a sentiment shared by many different media outlets in this building and beyond this building. The Australian Press Council, in its submission, said:

Access to information is a fundamental democratic right and should not be contingent on financial means. Application and review fees pose a significant barrier for freelance journalists, smaller outlets, academics, and civil society groups. Evidence suggests that individuals are far less likely to pursue reviews when fees are imposed, effectively excluding them from scrutiny. This results in a two-tier system where large media organisations can pursue appeals, but community and independent journalists cannot.

I'll give an example of this. I spoke in the chamber yesterday about the great work undertaken by the Australian Remembrance Army, who are a very small group of volunteers who do a lot of very important work in researching information around unmarked World War I veterans graves within my electorate and across greater Brisbane. They've been using FOI requests to try to get information and Department of Veterans' Affairs records on how they've been maintaining war graves. If they had to provide this fee for every FOI request that they make, that cost would add up. It's not just big media organisations or big business that need to make FOI requests. Sometimes it's individuals who are making requests in relation to their own information; at other times it's small community groups who need to get a certain aspect of government information that's not publicly available. Any extra fee that we impose on them is another barrier to entry, and I don't think that that's the direction we should be heading in. We should have a process where we have greater transparency, greater accountability and less secrecy around the whole process. One of my colleagues who spoke on the bill talked about letting the sunlight in. That's so important. Transparency is critical.

The coalition will oppose the Freedom of Information Amendment Bill 2025 in the House because we believe that it ignores the key recommendations from the 2023 Senate inquiry, particularly those in relation to resourcing, timeframes and cultural issues within the Office of Australian Information Commissioner; it imposes new barriers, such as fees and the ban on anonymous requests, that reduce access and discourage legitimate applications; and it expands the grounds for refusing information, especially through new broad exemptions on cabinet and deliberate processes.

This speaks for itself. There is so much opposition to this bill that the government should seriously reconsider it.

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