For Hockey's ears only. Treasury shuts the door on FOI

So far, for now

So worried is the Treasury about its ability to establish “an effective working relationship” with its new Treasurer Joe Hockey that it is attempting to block access to its incoming government brief under freedom of information laws.

It’s a turnaround from Treasury’s position in 2007 when it released a redacted version the incoming government brief prepared for Labor’s Wayne Swan.

“Release of the incoming government briefs would interfere with the establishment of an effective working relationship between the Treasury and Treasurer,” the department says in a letter to news organisations refusing FOI requests released late Friday.

“The need to develop a trusting relationship is particularly important in the early days of a new government, to set the tone for the future working relationship of the whole department,” the letter says.

Disclosure “would not be conducive to establishing a productive, trusting and effective relationship with the Treasurer and would adversely affect Treasury’s effectiveness as a central policy agency.”

The letter advises media organisations of their rights of appeal.

Peter Timmins, a lawyer specialising in freedom of information litigation, said he wasn’t surprised...

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“That’s the way the bureaucracy has been moving for some years,’ he said. “They are increasingly speaking about the need to offer frank and candid advice. Former Attorney General Nicola Roxon used the phrase herself in setting up an inquiry into the laws earlier this year. The inquiry found that the existing laws did protect frank and candid advice, but the attitude of the bureaucrats has been hardening.”

Mr Timmins said he doubted whether Treasury would win an appeal. Some of the information in the brief, such as that dealing with economic conditions, would be uncontentious and could easily be released without compromising Treasury’s ability to talk to its minister.

In The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age






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"How do you sleep at night?" How minister Ludwig coped

Centrelink telephone operators answered calls to the department of agriculture and letters of complaint to minister Joe Ludwig went unanswered in frenzied attempts to deal with an outpouring of public concern in the wake of the Four Corners program on live animal exports aired on May 30.

Freedom of Information documents released to The Age suggest each one of the 500 complaints sent to the department or minister in the four days after the program wanted live exports banned or suspended.

“People working at the department must find it hard to face their children at the end of the working day,” said one website comment sent within minutes of the program going to air. “Do you pretend you work elsewhere? Do you say it’s not your fault?”

A letter received by the minister two days after the program said the writer had had trouble sleeping.

Another read: “I grew up on sheep and cattle stations, and was killing my own meat the age of 14, but I have no stomach for the collection of various tortures I have witnessed inflicted upon the species bred by us, to sustain us. You want to hope there is no animal-sympathetic entity to which we will all, one day, become accountable.”

The documents show the department adopted a triage system of responding to complaints, deciding not to respond to the 80 per cent of messages it dismissed as “standard campaign mail”.

Where the text of one email was identical to another only the “originator” received a response. Hundreds of others did not.

Letters from people identified as special - “MPs, industry associations, famous/important people etc.”... were given red carpet treatment, receiving individually-tailored replies.

Other members of the public received identical replies regardless of the content of their complaints.

The first draft opened by saying the government “shares community concerns”. The final draft was strengthened to say anyone who had seen footage “would have been shocked”.

Within a day of the program going to air the department diverted its inquiry line to Centrelink, where call centre staff answered as if they were from the department and used a preprepared script to tell callers their concerns would be noted.

The documents released to The Age provide no indication of the way in which the concerns were noted. The department released to The Age a representative sample of 20 of the 500 letters of complaint.

Asked whether it was right not to reply to form letters but to use form letters and Centrelink call centre operators in its own replies to members of the public the minister’s office told The Age he took community views seriously and had worked hard to ensure they were properly responded to.

Published in today's SMH and Age

How do you sleep at night?

What we said

“I truly do wonder how you sleep at night knowing that you work for a government that allows millions of innocent animals to be tied down and tortured before being slaughtered.”

Tuesday May 31


“All of the people working at the department of agriculture, fisheries and forestry must find it hard to face their children at the end of the working day. Do you pretend you work elsewhere? Do you say it’s not your fault?”

Monday May 30


“Minister I trust your dept’s website is under gridlock as a result of your inaction over the last 10 years. To see the suffering that those animals went through on 4 corners using Aust government approved (and probably funded) installations is beyond belief.”

Tuesday May 31

“I am sick to my very core on what I have seen on the program. As a developed society with values on cruelty to animals we can not let these practises continue.”

Tuesday May 31


“I grew up on sheep and cattle stations and was killing my own meat the age of 14, but I have no stomach for the collection of various tortures I have witnessed inflicted upon the species bred by us, to sustain us. You want to hope there is no animal-sympathetic entity to which we will all, one day, become accountable.”

Tuesday May 31

Correspondence to the department of agriculture, fisheries and forestry released to The Age under freedom of information act.

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Let's realy open access

Joshua Gans in today's Age:

"I would be happy if beside every representation of (government) information, there was a ‘click here to download a spreadsheet’ button.

If they can’t get that, this taskforce cannot claim to have succeeded in any measure."

Read more >>

Can't yet see the point of Government 2.0?

Here's the NSW Baby Names Explorer.

Click on, and have fun!


Oh, and here's the story:

Declaring the fight for Freedom of Information laws largely over the Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner has held open the prospect of a new system of government in which Australians not only have access to legislation as it is being drafted, but also take part in the drafting process through blogs and wikkis.

Mr Tanner has appointed Melbourne economist Nicholas Gruen to head a 15-member task force to draw up a blueprint for what he is calling Government 2.0, reporting end of this year.

And in a sign that the task force is serious it's opened a blog at gov2.net.au staffed by volunteers.

"I can see why some people might feel uneasy about using volunteers," says Dr Gruen. "But volunteers hand out meals on wheels and no-one complains...

I've got four experienced bloggers saying they want to do it already, and I am having a competition to design the banner and logo."

"There's no prize, just bragging rights."

Two years ago New Zealand redesigned its Police Act by putting the draft legislation on a wikki and inviting comments on each paragraph.

Mr Tanner told the Age that he would be interested in doing that from next year, but for legislation involving things such as sudden tax changes or national security measures it would probably never be possible.

"But if we engage with people who have views and knowledge, and take advantage of the so-called wisdom of crowds, we can get a better result."

Dr Gruen points to a UK website entitled fixmystreet.com saying it has enabled ordinary citizens to point out and discuss the condition potholes in their streets without the government needing to send out inspectors.

"It's also about moving in a parallel track to Freedom of Information laws," says Mr Tanner.

"While they are important for controversial issues, for other issues there is every reason to make the mass of non-controversial information the government holds freely available."

"During the Victorian bush fires a private company created a mashup – a website that combined data from a range of sources – to track the location of fires on a map in real time, reducing the demand on emergency information services. That's the kind of thing I want to flourish."

But Dr Gruen says it won't be easy. "When you sign up to the public service you are warned you're liable for two years in prison if you hand out Commonwealth information. Lawyers stop government departments putting video clips on YouTube. The NSW railways doesn't want web developers to have access to its timetables" he says.

Among Dr Gruen's favourite sites already making government information freely available is one in which the NSW Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages enables intending parents to check the popularity of childrens names in each year from 1900.

Published in today's SMH

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