WA Supreme Court to decide FOI status of Salaries Tribunal

The Western Australian Salaries and Allowances Tribunal has appealed to the Supreme Court the finding by the Acting Information Commissioner that found it was subject to the Freedom of Information Act.

In his decision the Acting Commissioner decided that the Salaries Tribunal was not a tribunal for the purposes of an exemption for such bodies in the FOI Act - it did not exercise judicial or quasi judicial functions, was not an adjudicative body, and some of its decisions were subject to review and final decision by the government.

Keryn McKinnon, writing in The West Australian describes the Supreme Court case as a must win test case for FOI:

"It is hard to understand how a body which makes decisions about the expenditure of tax payers funds, not to mention the authorisation of taxpayer-funded reports which it does not want to release, can hide behind a veil of secrecy".