SMH highlights major FOI findings

Saturday's edition of the Sydney Morning Herald includes this article about the Court of Appeal decision in WorkCover Authority v Law Society. The report highlights the important ramifications of the decision and as for the views of the experts they quote, well......

As stated in the earlier blog the most significant aspects of these decisions are those parts that deal with public interest issues associated with internal working documents after a decision has been taken on a particular matter, and the interpretation of the secrecy provisions in other acts exemption in Clause 12 of Schedule 1.

The Court of Appeal found no error of law in the ADT Appeal Panel decisions, so it needs to be read in conjunction with those decisions. This decision contains the Appeal Panel conclusions regarding legal professional privilege; this second decision deals with the other aspects of the exemption claims - internal working documents, confidentiality, and secrecy provisions in another act.

I'm off to Melbourne for a couple of days but will be keeping an eye on developments. I plan to have more substantial analysis of the Court of Appeal decision posted by the end of the week.