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Issue No 52
Uranium mining, Cabinet notebooks and redundant amendments to the Commonwealth FoI Act
Anne Cossins
The author states " in the wake of the Full Federal Court decision in
Commonwealth v Northern Land Council (1991) 103 ALR 267, the Department
of Prime Minister and Cabinet drafted amendments to the Freedom of Information
Act 1982 (Cth) presumably for the purposes of preventing what appeared
to be a possibility under the doctrine of public interest immunity: the
general disclosure of Cabinet notebooks containing the deliberations of
Cabinet and associated ramifications (from the perspective of government)
for the doctrine of collective responsibility. Despite that possibility
being firmly laid to rest by a majority of the High Court in an appeal
from the Full Federal Court decision, the amendments were passed and became
law on 15 March 1994. The effect of the amendments is to narrow the definition
of 'document' under s 4 (1) of the FoI Act." Essentially this article summarises
and examines the above circumstances, concluding that the amendments were
not necessary and achieve nothing of practical effect.
The further demise of FoI in NSW
Bruce Smith
Smith examines the operation and effectiveness of the NSW FoI Act. Firstly, the Ombudsman's FoI concerns in both a Special Report to Parliament (17 March 1994) and speech at a Royal Institute of Public Administration Australia seminar on 15 July 1994 are discussed. Secondly, the author conducted a survey of the annual reports of a number of NSW government agencies concerning their FoI activities to determine if they revealed any issues of concern (Note Smith's earlier survey reported in (1994) 49 FoI Review 2). Findings were disturbing, suggesting that internal review mechanisms were problematic and referrals to the Ombudsman for external review virtually non existent. Discussion is also included as to the type of users utilising the Act, and whether the cost of FoI is a problem.