The heading on this December 2015 post reflected my views on a column by Jack Waterford in The Canberra Times FOI veteran lets fly with a few wild swings and low blows
in which he delivered an assessment of the contributions to open government by former Australian Information Commissioner Professor John McMillan. In my view both unfair and unjustified.
Professor Mcmillan subsequently took legal action against Fairfax Media, publishers of the CT.The following statement was appended to the online version of the article and published in the 11 November edition:
Professor John McMillan
In legal proceedings brought over this article, Professor John McMillan alleged that it constituted an attack on his personal integrity, performance and competence in his roles as former Commonwealth Ombudsman and Australian Information Commissioner.
If any reader understood it that way, The Canberra Times unreservedly withdraws any such suggestion and sincerely apologises to Professor McMillan for any hurt or embarrassment caused by the article.
The Canberra Times acknowledges that Professor McMillan is a distinguished administrative lawyer of the highest integrity.
I read this remark from some years earlier: "I could never be convinced that most of the quasi-judicial officers of the office of the Australian Information Commissioner were ever very much in favour of FOI or, in practice, very likely to cause disclosure to occur, at least within a reasonable period of time". That resonates remarkably with my experience of trying to engage McMillan's office. One is attracted by the proliferation of learned articles and speeches by McMillan, but the Ombudsman was not attracted to my complaints about AFP conduct - it seems that convicted paedophiles, or at least those labelled and persecuted as such, lie outside the jurisdiction of the Ombudsman and certainly outside McMillan's personal sphere of interest.
ReplyDelete