Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Centre Alliance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I call the member for New England.

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

():  Just a point of order. Madame Deputy Speaker, we've just been informed recently—we thought we were going to government business, the defence amendment. I've just been talking to the whip's clerk in our office to get the change in speakers. Because we've changed the order of business, we don't have speakers here who do want to speak on this. I know they've got three on the list. I can't remember the names. When was this change made, to go to this bill?

Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Centre Alliance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Member for New England, I am not aware of when that was changed, but certainly in front of me, now, I have the Freedom of Information Amendment Bill 2025. I can suspend the chamber while we find someone who is keen to talk.

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you very much.

Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Centre Alliance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The chamber is suspended until further notice.

Sitting suspended from 10:43 to 10:48

We had a bit of a debacle before the suspension, so I'll proceed again with respect to the Freedom of Information Amendment Bill 2025. The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this the honourable member for Curtin moved as an amendment that all words after 'That' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The honourable member for Wentworth has moved as an amendment to that amendment that all words after 'House' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The question is that the amendment moved by the honourable member for Wentworth to the amendment moved by the honourable member for Curtin be agreed to.

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

I am not surprised at all that there is a level of confusion around this Freedom of Information Amendment Bill 2025 and where we are up to in the debate because it has been a bit like a yo-yo going back and forth between this place and the chamber downstairs. I think that is a bit emblematic of the government 's approach to this legislation. Unfortunately, we are seeing a bill here that is, I think, relatively friendless. There is great support, I am sure, from the government and the government backbenchers but very little support from my side of the chamber, the crossbench or even anyone out there in civil society who has made comment on this bill so far.

What we are seeing in this bill is something that weakens the transparency measures around government processes, it entrenches secrecy and it reduces accountability, and that is something we certainly cannot support. Unfortunately, we are seeing the government rush this bill, and the antics of seeing it go back and forth between our debating chambers is indicative of that. The government have rushed this bill through. They are ignoring the 2023 Senate FOI inquiry and without advancing credible national security measures. We have also seen this bill introduced without consultation. Unfortunately, it undermines transparency and democratic accountability. It moves FOI from a presumption of openness to a presumption of control. Australians will see only the announcements and never the debates that lead to them. Unfortunately, it also creates a truth tax, and we see a lot of opposition to that from not just civil society groups but also from those whose job it is to also hold the government to account—that is, our media. By imposing application fees and processing caps, Australians will have to pay for access to information that already belongs to them.

We are also seeing a lot of criticism of this bill, that it will silence whistleblowers and it will prevent vulnerable applicants from being able to access information. It bans anonymous requests, which strips away protections for those who fear retaliation. That is an area I will focus on a bit later in my remarks as well. It is critical we do allow those anonymous requests because people do at times require the protection of an anonymity to be able to make these requests and get to the bottom of things, and I will touch on that a bit later.

The bill also expands secrecy around cabinet advice. New clauses will allow agencies to block access to any document that describes or refers to cabinet material and to classify factual briefs as deliberative to keep them hidden. Anyone who has had anything to do with making freedom of information requests before will understand that inherent grey area between what is cabinet material and what is not.

I have certainly had quite a bit of experience in lodging freedom of information requests. I have worked for a number of industry associations over the years where I have had to make FOI requests, and, being a member of parliament, I have made a number of freedom of information requests not only to the federal government but also to the Queensland state government as well. It has been interesting to draw a parallel between the different systems. It has always been a benefit of the federal government systems that they have always been cheaper, more transparent and clearer than what the state government offers. I recall one particularly bad incident when I was requesting a rather simple bit of information from the Queensland government in relation to a helipad which had been closed and was being utilised to withdraw patients from Stradbroke Island in my electorate. It had been closed under unusual circumstances. We have gotten to the bottom of it now but it took me about two years to find out a clear answer from the state government. I fear the changes these laws will implement will provide that same labyrinth, that same level of complexity, to federal FOI requests as well. I

This bill also rewards delays and dysfunction. We already see agencies that breach FOI timeframes all the time. In fact, I had one last year where an agency requested more time to be able to meet their FOI request and were unable to make it.

Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Centre Alliance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If the member will pause, the member for New England?

Member for Kennedy, would you mind not speaking on your mobile phone in the chamber, please, while other members are on their feet speaking.

Henry Pike (Bowman, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to 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.

Melissa Price (Durack, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Labor government loves to talk about transparency. They promise openness, integrity and accountability. But with this Freedom of Information Amendment Bill 2025 they have done the opposite. This bill is not about Freedom of Information; it is about freedom from scrutiny. It weakens the public's right to know, entrenches secrecy and reduces accountability of the federal government. It is the most significant roll-back of transparency laws in over 40 years. Labor tells us this bill will modernise the freedom of information framework and improve efficiency, but, when you look very closely, it becomes clear. What they really mean is to make it easier to say no—make it easier to encourage dysfunction and to encourage and reward incompetence.

Let's look at what the bill actually does. Schedule 1 rewrites the objects of the act to prioritise the proper functioning of government over the public's right to access information. Schedule 2 bans anonymous requests, ending protections for whistleblowers, advocates and citizens who fear reprisal. Schedule 3 introduces a discretionary 40-hour processing cap, allowing agencies to stop searching once the request just gets that little bit too difficult. Schedule 4 extends decision timeframes from 30 calendar days to 30 working days, delaying responses. Schedule 5 changes the Information Commissioner's review processes in a way that limits third-party participation. Schedule 6 creates application fees for freedom of information requests and reviews. This is effectively a truth tax on citizens seeking information. Schedule 7 expands cabinet and deliberative process exemptions, making it easier to refuse requests without even searching for one document. Schedule 8 allows a different minister or agency to respond if a minister leaves office.

This bill moves freedom information from a presumption of openness to a presumption of control. I'll say that again: it moves from a presumption of openness to a presumption of control. So much for transparency. Australians will only see the final announcements—never the debates, never the advice and never the disagreements that led to those decisions. The coalition opposes this bill because it undermines transparency, accountability and trust in government. This bill was introduced without consultation and rushed into the parliament despite the findings of the 2023 Senate FOI inquiry, which made it clear that the real problems are under-resourcing, delays and cultural resistance within agencies. Labor has clearly ignored those findings. Instead of fixing the system, they're breaking it even further. It takes a lot of talent!

Let's be honest. This is not a reform born out of necessity. It is a reaction to scrutiny—a desire for less scrutiny. I can't believe I'm saying those words. I just cannot believe it. By banning anonymity, Labor silences whistleblowers and vulnerable applicants. By imposing the fees, they make transparency a privilege only for those who can afford it. By expanding exemptions, they ensure that the most politically sensitive information will stay hidden. Every major integrity body, transparency advocate and media organisation has condemned this bill, and so they should. Not one of them supports it. The only supporters, of course, are the bureaucrats who would rather not be questioned. They're cheering from the sidelines. This is not just poor policy; it is procedural abuse. Yet, here we are, being forced to consider it before the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee has even reported. They've been working hard on this very issue. Their report is due on 3 December. What's the rush? Why can't we wait until that report is finished so that we can look at the recommendations? We could all look at the recommendations. The report is due on 3 December. The government's decision to rush debate now, before the committee has finished its work, is a disgrace. It's another example of this government's contempt for parliamentary process.

So much for transparency! What is Labor scared of? That is what you've got to ask yourself. Labor came into power promising integrity. They spoke of sunlight as the best disinfectant, yet under this government we've seen non-disclosure agreements, secret costings, hidden estimates manuals and, now, legislation designed to make it harder for Australians to see what their government is doing.

I've been in government for 10 years. We don't always like the scrutiny, but it's important for our democracy. This bill damages public trust. It tells citizens that the government—

Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Centre Alliance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Can the member for Durack pause. We no longer have quorum in the chamber. The chamber is suspended until further notice.

Sitting suspended from 11:11 to 11:14

(Quorum formed)

Melissa Price (Durack, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In continuance, I might repeat some of the words that I've just said, but I think they're worth repeating. This bill damages public trust. It tells citizens that the government doesn't trust them with the truth. When people can't access information, they can't form an informed opinion, and that strikes at the heart of our democracy. Freedom of information is not a privilege granted by government; it is a right owed to every Australian citizen. When you limit what citizens can know, you limit what they can decide.

The coalition stands for open government, a free press and the people's right to know. We will engage constructively with the Senate inquiry and consider amendments that are genuinely there to protect transparency, including removing the most restrictive provisions in schedules 2, 3, 6, 7 and 8. But make no mistake. As it stands now, this bill is indefensible. It ignores the expert advice of the 2023 Senate inquiry, it expands secrecy, delays access, discourages applications and imposes new costs on citizens. It turns a system built for accountability into a fortress for concealment.

So you have to ask yourself: what is Labor so scared of and what is the bureaucracy so scared of? Labor says this bill will modernise the freedom-of-information framework, when , in truth, it will take Australia backwards—back to the days when government decisions were made behind closed doors and the public was told only what it was allowed to know. Democracy dies in the darkness, and this bill is darkness by design. The coalition will oppose the Freedom of Information Amendment Bill 2025 because transparency should not depend on convenience. The truth should never come with a price tag.

Tom Venning (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Freedom of information isn't a privilege; it's a right that belongs to the Australian people. The documents of government don't belong to ministers or departments; they belong to the people. When Australians ask for information, they are not being difficult. They are exercising their right to know how their government works. That right, one of the most important in our democracy, is what this bill, the Freedom of Information Amendment Bill 2025, puts at risk. The government says this bill will modernise the FOI system, but it does not modernise it; it weakens it. It moves our system from a presumption of openness to a presumption of control. It gives agencies more excuses to say no and gives citizens fewer tools to hold government accountable. That's not reform; that is retreat.

I want to thank my colleagues who have called this bill what it is—a truth tax. Australians will be made to pay more, wait longer and receive less when they simply ask to know what their government is doing. Let's remember what FOI is actually for. It's for journalists to expose waste. It's for community groups to check on decisions that affect them. It's how citizens hold us, their representatives, to account. Remember what 'FOI' stands for—'freedom of information'. It's not 'freedom of information if we feel like it'. If FOI fails, bad decisions multiply in the dark. This government already has a transparency problem, and now, under this bill, even that small window of sunlight will start to close.

In regional Australia, we value straight talk. In Grey, people don't expect perfection from government, but they do expect honesty and openness. They expect to see where their money is being spent. They want to know why a road project in the mid-north has stalled or how decisions about aged care or rural hospitals were made. They want to know why programs are announced but the delivery never seems to reach the Eyre Peninsula, the Yorke Peninsula or the far north. Freedom of information helps us keep that trust alive. It's how the local paper in Port Augusta or Whyalla can ask the hard questions. It's how communities make sure decisions about them are made with them, not for them behind closed doors. That's why this bill matters. It's because, when you shut down transparency, you shut out the people.

Now, let's look at what this bill actually does.

Schedule 1 rewrites the whole purpose of the act. Right now, the law says government information should be released unless there's a good reason for it not to. Under this bill, information will only be released if it is part of the 'proper functioning of government'. That sounds harmless, but it's a huge shift. It gives every department an easy way out: 'Sorry, we cannot release that. It might interfere with our processes.' What a cop-out! It's the kind of language that breeds bureaucracy, not accountability.

Schedule 2 bans anonymous requests. The government claims that that's about protecting national security from bots. That's nonsense. Once a document is released, it's public. Who asked for it doesn't matter, but for the whistleblower, the community advocate, the local journo or the local public servant who spots something wrong, anonymity is protection. Removing it will silence the people who most need it to be heard.

Schedule 3 caps processing times at 40 hours. That's not efficiency; that's a get-out clause. It lets agencies stop searching when things get hard. The big, complex cases, the ones that expose systematic issues, will be the first ones to hit the wall. Imagine a journalist in Balaklava trying to uncover why local job funding fell through or a volunteer group in Port Lincoln asking for correspondence about a fisheries decision. Once that search hits 40 hours, the answer will simply be: 'Too hard. Denied.' That's not accountability; that's called obstruction.

Schedule 4 changes the timeframe from 30 days to 30 working days. That means longer wait times—six weeks instead of four. And that's before you add the usual extensions.

Then there's schedule 7, which quietly expands the cabinet exemption to cover any document that merely refers to cabinet material. That means a department could refuse to search at all, claiming that papers might be related to cabinet. That's not protecting cabinet confidentiality. That's burying anything that might cause political discomfort. It's the difference between keeping deliberations private and hiding inconvenient truths.

This bill does not come in isolation. It fits a pattern, a pattern of control, concealment and centralisation. We've seen it in the refusal to release energy modelling, in the endless redactions on defence and procurement and in the Prime Minister's own handling of his diary. The culture of 'no' is spreading through this government. Right now, we need absolute transparency on energy policy and power prices. This government has not released anything on how much it will cost the country to get to net zero, for example. Some say $8 trillion to $9 trillion. What does that mean for a steelmaker in Whyalla or the worker at the lead smelter in Port Pirie? Their livelihoods are on the line. And regional manufacturing is hitting the wall because of this government's energy policy.

Who loses when transparency dies? It's not ministers and not the big corporates with lawyers and lobbyists. It's the local paper in Port Augusta that cannot afford the new fees. It's the community group in Ceduna trying to trace where regional grants went. It's the citizen in Kimba asking simple questions about infrastructure funding and getting stonewalled by a process. This bill will make it harder and more expensive for those people to participate in their own democracy. Freedom of information should not be a luxury item for those who can pay the most. It should be the ordinary right of every Australian.

This government says this bill is about efficiency. Let's be honest: it is not. Efficiency doesn't come from new excuses to say no. It comes from properly resourcing the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner so it can clear the backlog. I will repeat that: it comes from properly resourcing the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner so it can clear the backlog. It comes from better training, clearer systems and a culture that values transparency instead of fearing it. Right now, there is a stack of unresolved reviews. Applicants wait years. Departments drag things out until a story is cold and the issue is forgotten. That's not efficiency; that is delay by design.

In Grey, people do not have the money or time to fight through red tape to get answers. When a community wants to know why a hospital service was downgraded or why a road repair project fell off the budget, they should be able to ask and get a straight answer. They should not need a lawyer, a lobbyist or a media team to do it. That's what this bill forgets. It treats the public as a nuisance, not a stakeholder. It forgets the power is lent to us by the people, not owned by us. If the government was serious about improving the system, it would take a very different approach.

Here is what genuine reform looks like: keep the law's purpose clear—that information belongs to the people, not to the government; protect anonymity so whistleblowers and citizens can speak without fear; replace the 40-hour cap with a duty to assist so agencies must work with applicants to refine requests, not block them; limit the cabinet exemption to genuine cabinet documents, not every piece of paper that mentions a minister's name; and properly fund the information commissioner so that the system actually works. Those steps will deliver real transparency. They would make government more open, not more opaque.

Freedom of information is meant to make governments uncomfortable. It is meant to hold power to account. That is the point. Governments that fear scrutiny don't trust the people, and, when governments don't trust the people, the people stop trusting government. We already see that distrust growing across the country. People are cynical about politics, frustrated by spin and tired of decisions being made without explanation. If this bill passes, that cynicism will deepen, and the next government will inherit a system even more closed off than before.

Transparency should not be a partisan issue. It is not about left or right; it is about fairness, honesty and accountability. When people can see the facts for themselves, democracy gets stronger. In Grey and right across regional Australia, people expect straight talk and fair play. They expect government to answer questions honestly, even when the answer is uncomfortable. This bill fails that test. It weakens transparency, it increases secrecy and it shifts power further away from the public and into the hands of the bureaucracy.

This parliament should not vote for longer delays, higher costs and wider exemptions. We should vote for openness, honesty and confidence. Freedom of information is not a nuisance; it is a right. It is a right. This bill does the opposite. It narrows it, it entrenches secrecy and it weakens the fundamental rights 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 that this bill will modernise the freedom of information framework, that it will streamline processes and improve efficiencies. But when you read it, when you listen to those who understand the FOI system—journalists, integrity experts, transparency advocates—the truth becomes clear: this bill is about control, not modernisation.

The bill proposes a long list of sweeping changes to the Freedom of Information Act 1982 and the Australian Information Commissioner Act 2010. It would require all FOI requests to include verified identification, banning anonymous requests, and would impose a 40-hour cap on the processing of requests, allowing agencies to simply stop searching if they decided a request was too hard. It would allow new application fees for requests and for reviews, except for personal information, effectively taxing Australians for seeking the truth. It would expand exemptions for cabinet and deliberative documents, making refusals easier and transparency rarer. It would extend the time agencies have to respond from 30 calendar days to 30 working days, further delaying public access, and give the Information Commissioner power to remit reviews back to the very agencies that made the decisions in the first place.

These are not minor procedural tweaks; these are major structural changes to how Australians access information from their government. The coalition will oppose this bill because it strikes at the very heart of democratic accountability.

Michelle Rowland (Greenway, Australian Labor Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank my parliamentary colleagues for their contributions to the debate on this bill. The Albanese government recognises that an effective freedom of information system is vital to fostering citizens' trust in government decision-making and to supporting participation in Australia's civic and democratic processes.

Australia's current freedom of information framework was established over 40 years ago and does not reflect our world today, including the opportunities and challenges presented by modern technology. Outdated provisions divert resources and cost taxpayers money while delaying responding to genuine requests. Complex procedural and technical rules contribute to system inefficiencies without benefits to Australians or Australia's democracy. The Freedom of Information Amendment Bill 2025 will ensure our freedom of information framework is fit for purpose in 2025 and beyond by upholding and promoting core democratic principles that underpin freedom of information laws and addressing issues that in practice undermine a more effective and balanced framework.

The government remains committed to delivering meaningful freedom of information reform. We remain ready and willing to engage across to parliament on possible amendments, given the importance of getting this right. One of the important measures in this bill is the ban on anonymous requests. This will provide greater transparency about who is seeking to access information held by the Australian government, ensuring our FOI system cannot be exploited by those who may seek to do Australia or Australians harm. However, some stakeholders and those opposite have expressed concern that the proposed ban might discourage individuals or organisations with legitimate reasons for seeking anonymity, such as whistleblowers, from making FOI requests. Today I will be moving an amendment to address this concern by allowing applicants to make requests for non-personal information without having to disclose whether a request is being made on behalf of another person. This change will mean that a person with a legitimate reason for seeking anonymity can ask a member of parliament, a journalist, a lawyer, a friend or any other person to make a request for non-personal information on their behalf while maintaining their anonymity.

More broadly, we have been listening to evidence provided as part of the Senate committee inquiry, and the government will keep an open mind and continue to engage in good faith on the final form of these important reforms. We all agree on the need to get on with fixing what is currently a broken freedom of information system. What we know is that every stakeholder says the current FOI system isn't working and there are significant delays in having FOI requests processed. The fact is that the government's freedom of information laws will create efficiencies in the system to ensure it works better for all users of the system. This will allow genuine FOI requests to be prioritised and taxpayers' money to be better utilised.

The Albanese government and our FOI reforms are focused on delivering for the Australian people. This bill amends the Freedom of Information Act 1982 to reflect the modern environment. It will improve the freedom of information framework through reducing system inefficiencies, providing clarity of the law and addressing abusive processes that impact on people's right to access information.

The amendments achieve this by clarifying the scope and objects of the Freedom of Information Act, streamlining processes relating to information access requests and reviews, establishing mechanisms to address improper use of the FOI system, enabling application fees and clarifying the operation of certain exemptions and treatment of official documents of the minister. The bill also makes consequential amendments to the Australian Information Commission Act 2010 and the Public Interest Disclosure Act 2013 to support the changes to the Freedom of Information Act.

The bill provides important updates to the Commonwealth's freedom-of-information framework, with a focus on modernisation, reducing system inefficiencies and addressing abuse of processes that impact on people's right to access information. It recognises the importance of a well-functioning system of information access balanced with an efficient and effective government. I commend the bill to the House.

Zaneta Mascarenhas (Swan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this the honourable member for Curtin moved as an amendment that all words after 'That' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The honourable member for Wentworth has moved as an amendment to that amendment that all words after 'House' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The question now is that the amendment moved by the honourable member for Wentworth to the amendment moved by the honourable member for Curtin be agreed to.

Question unresolved.

As it is necessary to resolve this question to enable further questions to be considered in relation to this bill, in accordance with standing order 195 the bill will be returned to the House for further consideration.