Aaron Violi (Casey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I must admit it's nice that the Freedom of Information Amendment Bill 2025 has returned to the House today. The manager saw the light. The member for Fisher's speech yesterday no doubt convinced him that we needed to move the bill from the Federation Chamber back to the House. It is wonderful that the Manager of Opposition Business and the member for Fisher were able to convince the government to bring this bill back where it belongs—in the House.

This is an important bill when we look at freedom of information, democracy and the rights of our citizens, our media and our community to hold the government and parliamentarians to account. This is one of the fundamental challenges we face as a democracy—how we make sure we protect democracy by holding the government and the executive to account.

I want to quote a member of this House, a member of this parliament, who has been in this parliament for a very long time. They entered this parliament in 1996, so they will have seen a lot of the Australian journey and democracy. They said:

At a time where we have a global contest between democratic systems and authoritarianism, we need to do all within our power to ensure that our great democracy is trusted; that our politicians, our public servants are accountable; and that there is faith in the processes that overwhelmingly are conducted in good faith with people of integrity, with people who are honest.

Those are fine words indeed. Who delivered those fine words? It was the Prime Minister of Australia, the Hon. Anthony Albanese. This is another example of the Prime Minister saying one thing when he was in opposition and doing the complete opposite when in government. We've seen the continual degradation of transparency and accountability by this Prime Minister. Freedom of information is so important—to whistleblowers, to the Australian public and to the media—holding the executive to account.

But the Prime Minister did not stop there. He went on to articulate the very principles that he claimed define his government. He stated:

… the health of our democracy depends on the integrity of our institutions and the transparency and the fairness of our laws, and because the trust that is generated by that accountability and transparency helps to build national cohesion, bringing the country together, overcoming divides, finding common ground.

He concluded this assertion by affirming that integrity, transparency, accountability and fairness are 'the principles that drive the government that I'm proud to lead'. Now, let's hold those words up—trust, accountability, transparency and integrity—against the grim reality of the Freedom of Information Amendment Bill 2025. As my mum used to say to me, 'It's not what you say; it's what you do.' The Prime Minister has a dismal record of saying one thing and doing another.

This is not a blueprint for a stronger, more prosperous Australia built on trust. It is a monument to bureaucratic control and ministerial secrecy. It is the height of hypocrisy for the Prime Minister to preach about trust and accountability in the contest between democracy and authoritarianism, only to introduce a bill that actively entrenches secrecy and weakens the public's right to know. I wonder what those on the backbench of the government really think about this bill. I can imagine the speeches they would deliver if they were in opposition and it was the Morrison government or any coalition government that had delivered this bill. We should remind those members of the backbench that, in our democratic system, even though they might be in the same party as the executive, they too have a responsibility to hold the executive to account.

So let's look closely at what this bill proposes to do and why it thoroughly violates the spirit of transparency that the Prime Minister championed. The bill makes major changes to the Freedom of Information Act 1982 and the Australian Information Commissioner Act 2010. The coalition stands opposed to this bill in the House, the Freedom of Information Amendment Bill 2025, because it fundamentally weakens the rights of citizens to scrutinise government actions and reverses four decades of progress towards open government. The proposed changes are extensive, spread across nine schedules, and each schedule represents a fresh barrier erected between the government and the people it serves.

Firstly, let's consider schedule 1, which rewrites the objects of the act. This change signals the government's true intention, by prioritising the proper functioning of government over the public's right to access information. When the objectives of the law shift from facilitating access to protecting government machinery, the culture of secrecy is immediately validated.

Secondly, and perhaps most dangerous, is schedule 2, which bans anonymous requests. The bill requires FOI requests to be made with applicant identification, thereby banning anonymous or pseudo-anonymous requests. This provision is a direct attack on courage and integrity. It ends protection for whistleblowers, for advocates and for citizens who fear reprisal from their government or their employers. By silencing whistleblowers and vulnerable applicants, the government strips away the protection of those who fear retaliation. This is not building trust; this is instilling fear. We have pledged to retain anonymity and protect whistleblowers, because true accountability requires mechanisms that shield the brave individuals who speak truth to power.

Thirdly, this bill introduces a punitive mechanism designed to discourage all but the most well-resourced applicants: the truth tax. Schedule 6 creates application fees for FOI requests and reviews, except for requests concerning personal information. The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner will now be engaged to charge these fees, and, by imposing application fees and processing caps, Australians will have to pay for access to information that already belongs to them. This imposition of new barriers through fees is nothing less than a tax on transparency and severely reduces access to legitimate applications. This measure is designed to choke off access and reduce investigative journalism. I must say, given the work that Nick McKenzie and the Age have done when it comes to investigative journalism into the CFMEU and the links to the Australian Labor Party, we can see why this government wants to make it harder for investigative journalism to thrive in our country. The coalition will ensure any new fees are subject to parliamentary disallowance.

The barriers do not end with fees. Schedule 3 introduces a discretionary 40-hour cap of processing FOI requests. This cap allows agencies to stop searching once a request is deemed too difficult, effectively limiting agency workload and allowing them to simply abandon complex inquiries. Coupled with this cap, schedule 4 extends decision timeframes from 30 calendar days to 30 working days. Agencies already breech the FOI timeframes. Extending them will only make this system slower and less accountable, rewarding delay and dysfunction. The coalition stands ready to hold the government accountable for undermining transparency, but the mechanisms introduced in this bill make that essential work exponentially harder.

The Prime Minister spoke of ensuring faith in processes, yet this bill attempts to cloak the very heart of government decision-making in new layers of secrecy. Schedule 7 dramatically expands exemptions especially around cabinet and deliberative documents, making refusals significantly easier. New clauses allow agencies to block access to any document that describes or refers to cabinet material. Furthermore, they allow the classification of factual briefs as deliberative documents, keeping them hidden from the public eye. The expansion of cabinet and deliberative processes exemptions makes it easier to refuse requests without even searching for documents. Given we have the recent example of FOIs showing the Australian people that power prices will go up under this government, it is no wonder this government want to shield the Australian people from their incompetence and their mismanagement. That doesn't make it right.

This move expands ministerial and bureaucratic secrecy. Australians will now see only announcements, never the critical debates that led to them. This prevents Australians from forming informed opinions about their government. When you limit what citizens can know, you fundamentally limit what they can decide. Schedule 5 changes information commissioner review processes in a way that limits third-party participation, and schedule 8 allows a different minister or agency to respond if the original minister leaves office, clarifying that FOI responses can be provided by successive ministers or agencies. These are not merely technical provisions. They add complexity and reduce consistency, ensuring that new thresholds, exemptions and caps will lead to more disputes, more appeals and less transparency.

The opposition is not alone in its condemnation of this bill. The government claims it will modernise the FOI framework and improve efficiency, but the reality is that it weakens the public's right to know, entrenches secrecy and reduces accountability. The bill lacks public support. Every major integrity and transparency body has condemned this bill. None support it. Media and civil society are warning of increased costs and impeded investigative journalism. Apart from the bureaucrats who stand to benefit from reduced workloads and increased control, this bill does not have a friend in the world. This bill has been rushed. It was introduced without consultation, it ignored the 2023 Senate FOI inquiry, and it has not advanced any credible national security reasons for it.

The reality is that we know this bill has been introduced because, despite what the Prime Minister says, he wants to shield the Australian people from his incompetence. He wants to shield the Australian people from their ability to understand the failures of this government, and the failures of this government are many. Energy prices are up 40 per cent under this government despite them promising to reduce power bills by $275. Interest rates are up under this government. Inflation is out of control under this government. They continue to fail, and all they can do is not solve the problems of the Australian people but seek to hide from scrutiny of the Australian people.

Cameron Caldwell (Fadden, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There are some things in this place that we talk about that I think resonate even more strongly with our constituents than others do, and this particular topic of transparency and accountability is one of them. It's wonderful to see some schoolchildren up there in our parliament. Welcome, people in the gallery. They're here to observe, to understand, to listen, to see how this parliament works, to understand more about our democracy and to perhaps take away more insight into what the government, who sits on that side of this place, does in setting the tone and making decisions that affect every single one of them. This amendment bill that I'm speaking to today takes away some of the fundamental principles of democracy that we all hold dear; the accessibility to having accountability for decisions that are made by this government.

In preparation for this speech I printed out and reviewed the 79 pages of this bill. Given that it is titled the Freedom of Information Amendment Bill 2025, one would assume that transparency and accountability would be front and centre of this amending legislation. In actual fact, the word 'transparency' does not appear in this amending legislation. 'Accountability' does not appear anywhere in this legislation. It's a sad indictment on this government that they think that it's okay to hide from the Australian people, to put barriers between their decisions and the Australian people, and that's exactly what this bill does.

There's a bit of a theme to what we see from this government. For those of you who are here, you might be avid watchers of question time. Sadly, during the 47th Parliament and now the 48th Parliament, the opposition are receiving fewer questions than ever before. Just this week, in an hour and 10 minutes or so of question time, the opposition were granted only six questions. The Prime Minister and his ministers hide from the scrutiny that the Australian people deserve at every available opportunity. In question time, it's on very public display that they don't grant the opposition enough questions to genuinely hold the government to account on behalf of the people of Australia.

This amending legislation comes before the parliament less than six months after the Prime Minister and his Labor government were returned with a whopping majority. Is this what the Australian people signed up for in giving them 90-plus seats? I think not. The Australian people do not want a majority of this government in this place to be used to crush the very principles of government accountability and scrutiny, which is exactly what they are choosing to do, and at a time when Australians are struggling to pay the bills. We have seen Australians paying an average mortgage that's $1,800 more per month. We have seen electricity prices rise by 39 per cent. The ABS called it out specifically last week in their data that, in fact, in the last 12 months we have seen 23 per cent rises in power prices. Yet here we are, standing here debating a bill which is to provide cover to this government for the poor decisions that they continue to make.

I say that this is not how the government should be using their time in office. In fact, it's the very opposite. Much amending legislation is quite boring. Perhaps the schoolchildren up there will one day become lawyers and end up spending a lot of time reviewing legislation, so it's probably fair that, on page 11, item 21 makes an amendment that says, 'Omit "name of an", substitute "designation of the".' It's pretty vanilla stuff. It's what lawyers do. They write legislation, they read it, they interpret it. Sure, make that change, but the problem is that this legislation goes on to do so much more than make minor wording amendments.

I'm very proud to be here, representing my community. At all times, when I make a contribution in this place, the community that I represent and Australians are front and centre of my thoughts, and it's my job to highlight the failings of this government in what they do. I think about what the average resident of my electorate or Queensland or Australia would think about this particular piece of legislation, and I suspect that they would say that freedom of information is not a privilege; it is a right that is owed by the government to its people, the right that we all have to check, to question and to challenge. In a healthy democracy, the default position should be one of disclosure, and secrecy and cover-ups should be the rare event, not the status quo.

As I said, fundamentally, this amending legislation misses the point about transparency and accountability. Our job in this place and as an opposition is simple: we must defend the public's right to know about the government and what their plans are with this legislation to make it harder, slower and more expensive to try and seek the transparency and accountability that they fundamentally deserve. The parliament, in considering this legislation, faces one basic question: do we move from a position of openness to one of control? Australians deserve access to the reasons behind a decision, not just the press release that comes after the fact. The coalition, by its very nature, is one that doesn't enjoy a bloated bureaucracy; let me assure you of that. But modernisation and improved access should not be done in a way that will reduce people's right and ability to find out more information.

This bill—whilst completely overlooking some fundamentally important principles, in my view—has nine schedules. Schedule 1 rewrites the objects of the act. As I said earlier, minor administrative wording changes? Fantastic. Fundamentally changing the objective of the act that provides public access to information? It elevates the proper functioning of government over public access, completely flipping the freedom-of-information presumption.

Schedule 2, as my friend the member for Casey referred to in his contribution, is of particular concern. I think this is where some of the public commentary from a number of interested bodies, groups and representative bodies has come from. I think it's where much of the concern from our crossbench colleagues has come from. That is that protections for whistleblowers, journalists, advocates and citizens who have a genuine fear of reprisal will now have their protections lost, because they can no longer maintain their anonymity when they make these requests. That is extremely concerning, because quite often the types of people who are making these inquiries are the ones who are most vulnerable to having their identity shown. It is such a critical part of our democracy that we have proper third-party scrutiny—from whistleblowers, from the media—and I fear that this will discourage that scrutiny from occurring.

Schedule 3 is probably an example of how this could go very wrong. A 40-hour processing cap is now being proposed. That means that agencies can stop when things get a bit too hard, no matter the value, the importance of the issue: 'No, sorry: tools down; we've gone past the allocated time.' It's really not good enough. I mentioned that one of the fundamental problems we have with this legislation is the delay that will occur. We know that schedule 4 blows out the time frames, from 30 calendar days to 30 working days. We know that this system is already prone to delays. This won't help with efficiency or transparency; it will make things worse.

But possibly the most concerning aspect is the application and review fees—what we on this side of the House have described as a truth tax. Again, the action of this government, through this legislation, is not one of allowing the public to shine a light on its decisions; it's one of putting roadblocks in the way. That example of putting a financial disincentive in the system for people who will probably struggle to meet those fees—when all they're trying to do is hold their government to account—is extremely concerning.

Again, sadly, we have only a relatively short period of time to make a contribution in this place—and believe me, I could go on for a bit longer, and I would have loved to. But, in summing up, I think it's quite clear that what this government proposes to do, using the power it has in its large majority, in one of its first acts of this parliament, is shameful and will no longer provide the Australian people with the transparency and accountability they deserve.

Leon Rebello (McPherson, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Freedom of Information Amendment Bill 2025, a bill that, despite its title, does not expand freedom of information in Australia. It does the opposite. It narrows it, it entrenches secrecy and it weakens the fundamental right of Australians to know what their government is doing in their name. This bill represents a profound step backwards for transparency, accountability and open government. The government tells us the bill will modernise the freedom of information framework, streamline processes and improve efficiency. But when you actually read it and you listen to those who understand the FOI system—journalists, integrity experts and transparency advocates—the truth becomes quite clear. The bill is actually about control; it's not about modernisation.

It proposes a long list of sweeping changes to the Freedom of Information Act and the Australian Information Commissioner Act. Among them, it would require all FOI requests to include verified identification, banning anonymous requests; it'll impose a 40-hour cap on processing requests, allowing agencies to simply stop searching if they decide a request is too hard; it'll allow new application fees for requests and reviews, except for personal information, which would effectively tax Australians for seeking the truth; it'll expand exemptions for cabinet and deliberative documents, making refusals easier and transparency rarer; it'll extend the time agencies have to respond from 30 calendar days to 30 working days, further delaying public access; and it will give the Information Commissioner the power to remit reviews back to the very agencies that made the decisions in the first place. These are not minor procedural tweaks; they're major structural changes to how Australians access information from their government.

There are nine schedules in this bill, each eroding openness in different ways. Schedule 1 rewrites the very objects of the act, shifting the emphasis from the public's right to know to the proper functioning of government. That's not freedom of information; that's freedom from scrutiny. Schedule 2 bans anonymous requests. This will silence whistleblowers, journalists, advocates and ordinary citizens who fear retaliation. Schedule 3 introduces a discretionary 40-hour processing cap, which is a bureaucrat's dream. Agencies can now stop once something becomes too difficult. Transparency should never depend on convenience. Schedule 4 extends decision timeframes, turning 30 days into 30 working days. In practice, that's a delay of two extra weeks or more in a system that's already plagued by delay. Schedule 5 changes review processes to limit third-party participation, weakening the independence of the Information Commissioner's role. Schedule 6 introduces application fees, which is the truth tax I was talking about, and citizens will have to pay for access to information that should already belong to them. Schedule 7 expands exemptions for cabinet and deliberative processes. Agencies will be able to refuse requests without even searching for the documents. Schedule 8 allows successor ministers or agencies to respond if the original minister leaves office, which is a seemingly technical measure that risks blurring accountability. Schedule 9 contains transitional provisions that mask just how sweeping these changes are.

The coalition will oppose this bill because it strikes at the heart of democratic accountability. The bill has been rushed. There was no genuine consultation, no serious engagement with the 2023 Senate FOI inquiry and no credible explanation for how these changes would protect national security or improve administration. We on the coalition side remain open to arguments about national security. We always have been and we always will be. But no-one has yet explained how making it harder for citizens to ask for information makes Australia safer. No-one has identified any instance of a leak or a breach that could only be prevented by banning anonymous requests or capping processing time.

This bill flips the presumption of the FOI Act on its head. For 40 years, the principle has been simple: that government information belongs to the public unless there's a good reason to withhold it. Labor's bill replaces that presumption of openness with a presumption of control. Australians will be left to see only what the government wants them to see—the polished announcements, not the messy debates that led to them.

By charging fees for applications and reviews, this bill creates a new barrier to access. Transparency will depend on your bank balance. The right to know will become a privilege for those who can afford it. By banning anonymous requests, this bill endangers those who seek to expose wrongdoing. Whistleblowers, journalists, advocates and even public servants who are acting in good faith will be deterred from seeking or sharing information.

The bill's new cabinet and deliberative exemptions are quite breathtaking in scope. Agencies will be able to classify factual briefings as deliberative, simply to keep them hidden. Agencies already fail to meet statutory deadlines, and this bill rewards that failure by extending timeframes and reducing oversight. Delays will become the norm not the exception.

No major integrity or transparency body supports this bill—none. Every independent voice from media organisations to civil society groups have warned it will weaken democracy and impede investigative journalism. This government came to power promising transparency. What have we seen instead? Secret estimates manuals, refusals to release departmental documents and non-disclosure agreements at every turn. This bill is just the latest step in a broader pattern of secrecy. When governments hide information, trust evaporates. Democracy depends on informed citizens. You cannot make informed choices if you are kept in the dark.

The coalition will vote against this bill, because it ignores the recommendations of the 2023 Senate inquiry, which highlighted resourcing and cultural change as the real issues within the FOI system, because it imposes barriers that discourage legitimate applicants and because it expands the grounds for refusal and secrecy. It has no credible stakeholder support outside the bureaucracy, and it reverses four decades of progress towards open government.

I'd also like to note that—I'm pleased to see many of the independents speaking out against this, but I do hope that the Climate 200 movement remembers this when we get to the next election, because they seem to exclusively target the Liberals—this is a clear example of the fact that it is the Labor government that lacks transparency. The Albanese Labor government is proving every day why they are the most unaccountable, secretive government in recent memory. Freedom of information was never meant to be comfortable for government; it was designed to make them accountable. This bill does the opposite. It shields ministers and officials from scrutiny, it entrenches secrecy and it weakens the rights of the everyday Australian citizen.

We welcome the fact that this bill is now before the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee. That inquiry will report in early December. Given the complexity of these changes, it's absolutely extraordinary that the government is pushing ahead with the debate before that report is even tabled. We in the coalition will continue to engage constructively through the committee process. We will support or move amendments that restore transparency, including retaining anonymity to protect whistleblowers, ensuring any new fees are subject to parliamentary disallowance and removing the most restrictive provisions in schedules 2, 3, 6, 7 and 8. Our goal is simple: to defend the principle that information belongs to the public not to the government of the day.

Even the way this bill has been handled demonstrates the arrogance of this government. This bill was not meant to be debated this week. It was not on the draft forward program. The government has brought it on suddenly, ramming it through without the courtesy of waiting for the Senate committee's findings. That is not respect for process; that is abuse of process. The government even withdrew a promised security briefing for the former shadow Attorney-General—first offered online, then cancelled and then never rescheduled. The new shadow Attorney-General has not been briefed at all. This is not how serious national security concerns are handled. This is political theatre designed to create an illusion of urgency when none exists.

The truth is this bill does not have a friend in the world. The coalition opposes it, the crossbench opposes it, every major stakeholder opposes it—everyone except, of course, the bureaucrats who would gain new powers to refuse information. Once again, the government is abusing parliamentary procedure, just as it's done with the environment protection and biodiversity bills. Debating this bill before the Senate report is finalised is a travesty. It shows contempt for due process and for the Australian people. Yes, the government was elected with a very large majority in the House, but that has emboldened them and that 'emboldenedness' has now turned to a sense of arrogance.

Freedom of Information is not a privilege granted by government; it is a right owed to every citizen in a democracy. Freedom of information exists so that Australians can hold their government to account, so that power cannot be exercised in darkness. Those of us on this side of the House know that when you limit what citizens can know you limit what they can decide, and when you limit what they can decide you limit democracy itself—something that we as a nation have worked towards for so many years.

Labor's bill puts secrecy before service. It puts control before citizenship. The coalition believes in open government. We believe in a free press and we believe in the people's right to know. Over the course of the election campaign in McPherson, I had the opportunity to speak to so many individuals across the southern Gold Coast who shared that view. They want representatives who are going to give them access to information because it is the information of the people. This bill erodes those principles and it must be opposed.

When the original Freedom of Information Act was introduced 40 years ago, it marked a turning point. It recognised that transparency strengthens democracy, that access to information empowers citizens. We on this side of the House know that that is true—that government must be accountable to the governed. This bill moved by the Australian Labor Party would undo that progress. It would make secrecy the norm and openness the exception. We here in the coalition stand firmly against it, and we will continue to hold the government to account. We will continue to fight for transparency, integrity and the public's right to know. Those of us on this side of the House that regularly engage with our communities, that regularly engage with the Australian people, need to be the ones to stand up against this government and what they're doing.

Freedom of information is not just a law. It's not just a concept that we talk about and give lip service to. It's a principle. It's a cornerstone of democracy. It's something we need to continue to fight for and advocate for on behalf of our communities. It's so disappointing that this government has chosen to go about this bill in the way it has. Once freedom of information is weakened, once secrecy takes hold, it is very difficult to restore.

I've outlined in the course of this speech a number of issues with this bill. I've taken the parliament through the various schedules and spoken about the issues and the ways in which this bill would compromise integrity, transparency and open government—the things that we in this place should be working towards. This bill represents a step backwards for Australia as a country, and the government should be absolutely ashamed of the way it's progressing this bill.

We here in the coalition will continue to make noise. We will continue to make sure that Australians have the right to engage with their government and to engage with the information that is owed to them. Where there are national security concerns, we on this side of the House will work with the government and we understand that. But, as I stated, there is no example that the government is able to provide.

It's for all these reasons that the coalition will oppose the Freedom of Information Amendment Bill 2025. I ask the government to take a serious look at itself in the way that it's gone about moving this legislation.

Zali Steggall (Warringah, Independent) Share this | Link to 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.