Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

I'm interested to understand what the need or rationale is to include amendments to the FOI Act that apply specifically only to the CDC. Why is the FOI Act, in its current form, insufficient to be able to cover any necessary provisions in relation to FOI? In relation to material causing social stigma and vilification to a group, is the term 'group' explicitly defined in the legislation? To that end, could a state or territory government—or other government entities or bodies—be considered a group for the purposes of this provision? If so, could this result in critical information being withheld from the public domain simply due to the objections from entities such as a state government?