Is too much FOI ever enough?

A prominent academic Richard Mulgan, Director of the Policy and Governance Program, Asia Pacific School of Economics and Government, at the Australian National University in Canberra has bought into the debate about openness and transparency in government. In an article in the Canberra Times on 7 February 2006, under the headline - "The dangers of too much FOI", Mulgan says that open government advocates fail to understand that an important part of the role of the (senior) public servant is to protect the Minister from political attack and criticism. He says that in order to achieve this objective policy research needs to be undertaken on a confidential basis - "why embark on research that could reveal faults with government policy if there can be no guarantee that the findings can be kept confidential?. The greater the chance that research will be disclosed, the stronger the incentives not to proceed with it, unless its outcome can be guaranteed to be favourable to the government."

Mulgan's article concludes:

"That FOI, along with extended parliamentary scrutiny, has greatly improved the transparency and public accountability of government cannot be denied. But supporters of FOI need to recognise the genuine threats greater openness can bring to the maintenance of a professional, non-partisan public service. As former Public Service Commissioner Andrew Podger, pointed out in his retirement address (PSI July 2005), fewer records are being kept and less research is being conducted. Critics of government secrecy are also the first to deplore any signs of politicisation and excessive responsiveness to the Government of the day among public servants. But to expect career public servants to be frank, fearless and open in evaluating government policy is dangerously naive. There is no surer recipe for breaking the trust between ministers and professional public servants and for politicising the public service. The more open the public service, the more partisan its advice and information will inevitably become."

Mulgan clearly does not attach much weight to the argument that in a democratic society the citizen has a right to know what government knows, and to assess government choices fully informed about the options available and the reasons why government has chosen a particular path.

However, Mulgan's words are sure to be well received by those who continue to resist FOI's open government principles. Some of these critics are in very high places. For example, the Federal Treasurer, Peter Costello, in the High Court defending a case brought by The Australian's Michael McKinnon commented recently that FOI was intended only for the disclosure of personal information.