A 21st century government needs to move on from one stuck in the 19th when it comes to openness and transparency

At the swearing in of the Turnbull Ministry yesterday the Prime Minister told the Governor General

Your Excellency, today we are ... forming a government for the 21st century. A ministry whose composition and focus reflects our determination, to ensure that Australia seizes the opportunities of this, the most exciting times in human history. 

The Prime Minister repeated these descriptors a number of times over the last few days. He has also talked about his "wonderful new Cabinet, with brilliant younger people."

A government wishing to be seen in these terms will want to ditch the 'at war with transparency' tag that the Abbott government seemed to wear with pride. (Update: some movement underway)


The PM has said we need a new type of leadership and a government that is open and engaged.

I don't expect this means a burst of transparency regarding 'on water' activities, but an early move on two related fronts would evidence the good intent.

The Abbott government attempt to legislate to abolish the Office of Australian Information Commissioner and in the meantime defunding its FOI and information policy functions, and the non decision after two years about joining the Open Government Partnership represent 19th not 21st century thinking.

Withdrawal of the bill and announcement of a decision to join the OGP would pave the way for development of a national action plan through consultation with civil society as required by OGP rules. The plan would list concrete steps to improve transparency, open government and public participation- objectives the Turnbull government wishes to achieve.

Once the bill to  abolish the OAIC is laid to rest some thought can be given to evidence and changing times. The plan might identify the need for a comprehensive review of information access issues including scope to move Freedom of Information law into the digital open data era and improve efficiency and effectiveness within agencies and at the OAIC if the evidence suggests. 

In a conversation in July Mr Turnbull showed interest in such a review (see below).

The Prime Minister is clearly up also for changing direction when its the wrong way to go, telling ABC radio

When governments change policies, it's often seen as a back flip, or a back-track, or an admission of error. That is rubbish. We've got to be agile all the time. if you can't get something through the Senate, it is, I would say it's highly possible that you could change it to something that will get through the Senate. This is what John Howard calls the iron laws of arithmetic.

I had an opportunity to discuss FOI and the OGP with Mr Turnbull, my local member of paliament in July. These are emails exchanged at the time.

Federal Government rethink to follow PM Turnbull's commitment to open, consultative government?

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is interested in a different approach to governing. 

In outlining the case for change of leadership on Monday he spoke of the wisdom to be found outside Canberra's parliamentary triangle, the intention to be truly consultative and the importance of open government:

We need to be truly consultative with colleagues, members of Parliament, senators and the wider public. We need an open government, an open government that recognises that there is an enormous sum of wisdom both within our colleagues in this building and, of course, further afield.

An early test of the strength of this commitment will be whether the government withdraws the bill to abolish the Office of Australian Information Commissioner still sitting in the Senate Bills List after 16 months without majority support, and ends the two years of dithering about 'will we won't we' sign up to the Open Government Partnership.

Decisions to stick with the bill and funding cutbacks for the FOI and information policy functions, and to turn our back on the OGP will speak louder than words.

Turnbull: "we need an open government."

My local member Malcolm Turnbull is challenging for the leadership of the Liberal Party. There was plenty in his statement this afternoon including:

We also need a new style of leadership in the way we deal with others whether it is our fellow members of Parliament, whether it is the Australian people. We need to restore traditional Cabinet government. There must be an end to policy on the run and captain's calls. We need to be truly consultative with colleagues, members of Parliament, senators and the wider public. We need an open government, an open government that recognises that there is an enormous sum of wisdom both within our colleagues in this building and, of course, further afield. 

I'm going to drink to that!

Cheers.

FOI must be part of addressing integrity problems in Victoria

Farrah Tomazin in the Sunday Age focuses on Freedom of Information as one of the areas where the Victorian  Government needs to deliver results if as promised it intends to strengthen the integrity system it inherited. 

As mentioned previously the Victorian FOI act represents the finest thinking of the nineteen eighties about government transparency and accountability but public expectations and international standards have moved on.

Then there's the issue of implementation, lack of leadership and proper forceful oversight, and what appears to be a failed attempt by the previous government to establish an FOI commissioner with clout, resources and the capacity to get things moving in the right direction.

 
 The Sunday Age Illustration: Matt Davidson.

New Zealand tops again in 102 country survey of budget transparency, Australia yet to get a look in

Dark Green excellent, Green substantial, Red and Yellow not flash or worse, Grey 'not on our radar'

New Zealand again is ranked first in the International Budget Partnership 2015 Open Budget Survey of budget transparency, public participation, and the performance of oversight agencies, the widely accepted authoritative international voice on such things.

Congratulations to all five rated in the top category-NZ,Sweden South Africa, Norway and the US.  

However budget transparency is rated Limited, Minimal, Scant or None in most countries surveyed particularly in our region.

This fifth survey covers 102 countries but continues to not include two G20 members Australia and Japan (Oops, add Canada as well).
  
When I raised questions about this two years ago I said Australia likely would rate reasonably well if we were assessed, although some Budget Portfolio Statements challenge this reader at least.

Elena Mondo Supervisor, Open Budget Initiative replied to my email in 2013 explaining it was mainly a matter of resources.Whatever the reason for Australia not rating a mention, nothing much appears to have changed since:

"The choice of including additional countries in the Open Budget Survey depends on a number of factors: in first place, however, we aim at having a reasonable global representation in the countries that we include, so that we have, as much as possible, good geographical representation and countries with different characteristics across the world (income level, aid dependence, oil/mineral producer, democracies vs. autocracies, etc…). We do have a fairly good representation of western/high income/OECD countries, and we receive a significant amount of requests every round: so we have to prioritize quite a lot when faced with the decision of which countries we could add into the Survey. So, unless a country is absolutely strategic to IBP and not yet included in the Survey (I cannot think of any at the moment), we do not really go in search of new groups in new countries – if anything it’s the other way round! At the beginning of each Survey research round, we receive many requests from many countries (I think I counted as many as 20 last round) , and we do not have financial or staff resources to take on many additional countries: so we have to go through a touch selection process. We do not work in Australia, and we were not in touch (from what I can remember) with groups that expressed interest to complete the Survey. But, beyond that, as explained above, we have many request and limited financial and human resources, so we would still need top prioritize quite drastically. Ideally we would like to expand in order to cover the whole world, but we are already over stretched in terms of how much we can realistically deal with, and the inclusion of any new country is weighted against those factors. We have not yet started the process to undertake the 2014 Open Budget Survey, and we will start discussions in May, most likely. We are keeping a shortlist of countries where there has been interest in participating in the research, and depending on whether we will have additional resources, we will then decide whether and which ones to add."

"Freedom From Information-Australia's war on transparency"

Walkley Award winning journalist Sarah Ferguson will present the 2015 A.N. Smith free public lecture "Freedom From Information-Australia's war on transparency" in Melbourne on Wednesday, October 7, 2015.

A taste:

While governments – and major institutions – find new ways to limit transparency, the media industry itself is equally culpable, trading away its freedom to investigate for short term access. There is a war on transparency underway and the media is colluding with the wrong side.

Consideration whether Australia should join the OGP takes years longer than a decision to go to war

Australia's fence sitting on where it stands on the Open Government Partnership continues to attract international interest.

Included in commentary by Toby McIntosh in Washington last week was the response from the Department of Finance to the news, as McIntosh puts it, "that the OGP Steering Committee recently gave Australia until the end of October to indicate its intention to be an active member, or to join Russia as an OGP drop-out":

“The Australian Government is positively inclined towards joining the Open Government Partnership but has yet to make a final decision,” the official said, adding, “The Government intends to form a view as soon as possible and will take as long as necessary.”

As McIntosh received a response and having asked twice in recent weeks without success for answers from the Minister's office, this prompted me to try again, running these questions past the Media Centre:

Has the government responded to the OGP Support Unit following reports of concern reflected in the minutes of the July meeting of the Steering Committee over Australia’s lack of action as a member?

What are the government's intentions regarding the request to “recommit' to the OGP  by the deadline imposed by the Steering Committee, the October Global Summit meeting in Mexico?

Will the government be represented and by whom at the preparatory OGP Asia Pacific Regional Meeting to be held 7–8 September 2015 at Asian Development
headquarters in Manila, Philippines?

If the intention is to proceed with OGP membership, what steps are envisaged for public consultation on a national action plan?

The Department replied today although the response reveals nothing new, and for the public record at least indicates nothing has happened since the same responses were given to questions in Senate Estimates in February.

As has been stated publicly previously, the Government is positively inclined towards finalising its membership of the Open Government Partnership but is still considering its position. Once the decision is made, it will be conveyed to the OGP.

If the decision is to join, then a national action plan, developed in accordance with the OGP’s guidance<http://www.opengovpartnership.org/how-it-works/action-plans>, will be produced.

In the interim, Australia continues to provide appropriate representatives to observe at relevant OGP meetings, as is occurring currently at the regional meeting in Manila through the attendance of an embassy official, Mr Daniel Featherston, Counsellor Economic.

'Considering' (in a fashion) started when Australia was first asked to join the OGP in August 2011 and started again sometime after the Abbott government came to office two years ago.

In response to a request in recent weeks from the US a decision on whether Australian air force jets will bomb in Syria is expected any day now.

Australia head down and close lipped when it comes to the Open Government Partnership

The Abbott government continues to confuse some and dismay others following years of dithering about whether it wants to be part of the international movement committed to reform efforts designed to make government more open, accountable, and responsive to citizens.

Nothing to show for years of 'considering'
Four years after Australia was invited to join the Open Government Partnership, 28 months after a previous government lodged notice of intention to join, and two years since coming to office the Abbott government has not responded publicly to queries from the OGP and prefers to say nothing in response to requests for clarification of where things stand. 

For example these unanswered questions sent to the office of Minister for Finance Cormann twice in the last 10 days

Has the government responded to the OGP Support Unit following reports of concern reflected in the minutes of the July meeting of the Steering Committee over Australia’s lack of action as a member?
What are the government's intentions regarding the request to “recommit' to the OGP  by the deadline imposed by the Steering Committee, the October Global Summit meeting in Mexico?
If the intention is to proceed with OGP membership, what steps are envisaged for public consultation on a national action plan?

No answer from the Minister's office either to a question about whether the government will be represented at the OGP Asia Pacific Regional Meeting to be held 7–8 September 2015 at Asian Development Bank headquarters in Manila.

 However the organisers are more forthcoming telling me Daniel Featherston Economic Counsellor at the Australian Embassy in Manila is down to attend.
(I suppose that's something and indicates we are not out of it entirely but it conveys the message our interest is near bare minimum.Then again they could have sent the third secretary!)

Unfortunately it is part of a pattern -  Australia is yet to be represented by a minister at any OGP meeting. Prime Minister Abbott didn't take up the invitation from  President Yudyohono to attend the OGP regional meeting in Bali in May 2014, sending an official from Finance Canberra, nor attend President Obama's OGP gathering in New York in Leaders Week at the United Nations this time last year.

While Australia on the sidelines maintains an aloof position on the OGP and its goals, others note that the Asia Pacific region is under represented with regional initiative left to Indonesia, recently re-elected to the Steering Committee, Korea, New Zealand and the Philippines, supported by the Asian Development Bank and other donors.

Silence since February
The last time anything was said publicly about Australia's OGP intentions was February 2015 when the Minister for Finance told Senate Estimates the issue of Australian membership was still under consideration and the government was 'positively inclined' to join.

Has the PM yet seen a draft?
We know thanks to documents released under Freedom of Information that in August 2014 Prime Minister Abbott wrote to the Minister for Finance instructing that no announcement of Australia's position on membership of the OGP should be made "until a draft national action plan is submitted for my consideration.The action plan must give effect to practical measures that align with the Government's overall policy objectives in this area and that take into account the work of the (Redacted: s 34(3) Cabinet) and the timeframes for Government decisions on that work." Finance told the Minister work was coming along and should be in hand by the end of 2014. We don't know what happened since.

OGP in the dark  
In November 2014 the OGP Support Unit, taking the May 2013 notice of intention at face value, wrote to the Department of Finance pointing out Australia had acted contrary to the OGP process in failing to meet deadlines for lodgement of a national action plan. There is nothing publicly available to indicate they received a reply.

Or that they have heard back from Australia after they upped the ante more recently following the OGP Steering Committee discussion about government intentions at the July 2015 meeting:

The case of Australia was highlighted as particularly concerning, and the Steering Committee agreed on next steps and a deadline for Australia to recommit to OGP by the time of the Global Summit (October 2015).

The company Australia keeps?
So with a deadline in October and no doubt lots of questions for Mr Featherston in Manila next week will Australia recommit to "the international platform for domestic reformers committed to making their governments more open, accountable, and responsive to citizens" shared by 65 others?

Or join Russia as the only country to sign on to these objectives then think better of it by withdrawing?

FOI delivers: on US nuclear accidents and mistakes

Eric Schlosser Author,Command And Control, interviewed last night on ABC Lateline:

TONY JONES: Now, if this is all happening in the world's most advanced technological nuclear power, what's happening in Pakistan, which has the fastest-growing nuclear arsenal in the world, but we know the problems of the political system in Pakistan?

ERIC SCHLOSSER: We don't know. We don't know how Russia is handling its nuclear weapons. I'm very critical of my government in my book, but the United States has been much more open about its nuclear weapons systems than any other country in the world and much more open about its accidents and mistakes. I mean, it took me years through the Freedom of Information Act to get this information, but at least I was able to get it.

TONY JONES: It was kept secret until then.

ERIC SCHLOSSER: It was kept secret ...

TONY JONES: Hundreds of pages of incident reports which you acquired had all been kept secret.

ERIC SCHLOSSER: I found more than 1,000 accidents and incidents involving nuclear weapons. And in many ways it's a testament to the skill of our weapons designers that none of them detonated full scale, but I interviewed many of them for my book and they feel it's not a question of whether this is gonna happen, but when.

ICAN lists the following countries with, or hosting nuclear weapons. Many (well there are obvious exceptions) have FOI/RTI acts. Important challenging comparative study there for the taking.

Nations with nuclear weapons	United States, Russia, Britain, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan, North Korea
Nations hosting nuclear weapons	Belgium, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Turkey

Schlosser will participate in the Guardian Masterclass on Investigative Journalism in Sydney on 6 September to be hosted by Paul Farrell as part of the Festival of Dangerous Ideas.

"Expecting the attorney-general to act as a champion of open government is asking the fox to act as the defender of hens."

Emeritus Professor Richard Mulgan in The Canberra Times The slow death of the Office of Australian Information Commissioner recites the history of the government's (to date) failed attempt to abolish the office suggesting the government's cut in funding the FOI functions when the will of parliament is to maintain the office "rests on a strict, and distinctly "tricky", interpretation of the law."

More significant is what happens to the information commissioner's function to report generally on government policies in relation to information, including the disclosure and accessibility of government information. This function casts the commissioner in the role of public champion of open government, a role which McMillan performed, for example, by monitoring agencies' administration of FOI and generally advocating a more proactive approach to disclosing information. The claim that the Attorney-General's Department can adequately cover for this function is disingenuous. Expecting the attorney-general to act as a champion of open government is asking the fox to act as the defender of hens.

Professor Mulgan wrote "How the FoI watchdog was starved to death in June last year.

Litany of problems revealed in office of Victorian FOI Commissioner

Farrah Tomazin in The Sunday Age summarises the report commissioned in April by the Department of Premier and Cabinet into the office of Victorian FOI commissioner Lynne Bertolini​ that exposes "a litany of problems, including "unusual" procurement practices, unmet targets, and "poor conduct" towards some staff."

"The final report, now with Parliament's joint accountability and oversight committee, paints the picture of a dysfunctional office, with "poor conduct" towards the two assistant commissioners; a backlog of reviews and complaints by people seeking FOI documents; and favouritism towards some staff, with "considerable anxiety and stress" among others. It also reveals:

• Since December 2012 the FOI office spent $825,946 on contracts with two selected legal service providers when equivalent organisations in NSW, Queensland and the federal sphere use little or no external legal advice.
• A further $55,000 was spent to hire the Agenda Group for three days of work, including a former executive and colleague from the gambling regulator.
• The average time taken to complete an FOI review was 90.4 days – well in excess of the government's 30-day target. Ms Bertolini completed 130 reviews between last October and April this year, but her assistant commissioners Michael Ison​ and Rachel Westaway​ had only been assigned a combined 19 reviews over the same period."

Ms Bertolini announced her intention to stand down three weeks ago, effective last Saturday.

Legislation to create the Andrews government answer, a new Office of the Public Access Counsellor, is expected early next year.

Considering options while confirming plan to abolish Information Commissioner?

In a Media Release last Friday Attorney General Brandis said

"Timothy Pilgrim was appointed acting Australian Information Commissioner for a three month period in July 2015 while the Government considers options for the future of the Information Commissioner position."

 Today Jane Lee in Fairfax reports a spokesman for the Attorney General as saying 

"The government remains committed to its budget savings measure to abolish the OAIC...

The bill before the Senate to abolish the OAIC would abolish the positions of Australian Information Commissioner and Freedom of Information Commissioner. 

'Considers options for the future' - "thinks carefully about choices before making a decision."

Hmm...

Public sector corruption survey

Transparency International Australia (TIA) is supporting the TIA Queensland Regional Committee in conducting a pilot Survey in relation to public sector corruption in Australian states.  If you have the time help by completing the Survey today.

"We're the government and we're here to protect your privacy"

Not... 

as two experts outline years of failure to pay attention to privacy protection.

Dr Roger Clarke in a detailed working paper examines the last 15 years' incursions into human rights based on 'the terrorist threat' and highlights the limited attention paid to privacy impact assessment:

Democracy in Australia is gravely threatened by a flood of measures harmful to human rights that have been introduced since 2001, and a large proportion of which are unjustified and not subject to effective controls. The passage of these measures through the Parliament has been achieved on the basis of their proponents' assertions and without appropriate scrutiny. Parliament had available to it various forms of impact assessment techniques, but failed to require that such methods be applied. The study reported here found that one particular form of evaluation, Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA), should have been performed, but was seldom applied, and where it was applied the process and report were in almost all cases seriously deficient. Survival of democracy is dependent on the Parliament standing up to the national security extremism that has taken hold of the Attorney-General's Department. Ministers and Parliamentary Committees must demand prior evaluation of proposals that restrict civil freedoms, must ensure transparency in relation to the proposals and their justification, and must require effective controls over, and mitigation features within, those measures that survive the evaluation process.

Reminder: the Office of Australian Information Commissioner that includes the Privacy Commissioner has operated under threat of extinction for 15 months. Currently one commissioner is responsible for the functions of three commissioners envisaged by parliament in establishing the office. A Privacy Commissioner will be in place for 12 months from 19 October.

.......................
Anna Johnston of Salinger Privacy responds to a NSW parliamentary committee call for submissions on a statutory cause of action for serious invasions of privacy by providing chapter and verse of failure to address other well known weaknesses in privacy law and enforcement. 

Johnston lists the black holes where privacy laws don't apply and loopholes unique to NSW "so wide you could drive a truck full of privacy-invaders through them, and still have room for a parade of dancing elephants on either side." For example State Owned Corporations are not subject to privacy legislation, a NSW agency can pass any personal information to a person or body outside the state and not breach the Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act, and an agency is not responsible for privacy invasive conduct of an employee malicious or otherwise if the person wasn't really acting as an employee at the time.

Reminder: as Johnston notes, "NSW has only a part-time Privacy Commissioner, who does not have enough staff or an independent budget, let alone any powers to levy fines or compel privacy-invaders to do anything."

Brandis considering options for future of Australian Information Commissioner

It's the first indication in 15 months that a rethink of sorts is underway about plans to abolish the Office of Australian Information Commissioner.

In his announcement that Timothy Pilgrim has been appointed Australian Privacy Commissioner for a period of twelve months commencing 19 October 2015, Attorney General Brandis said Pilgrim's current three month appointment as Acting Australian Information Commissioner is 

"while the Government considers options for the future of the Information Commissioner position."

Options haven't been mentioned previously as the government single mindedly pursued abolition of the OAIC. Legislation before the Senate would eliminate both the information commissioner and FOI commissioner positions and a whole range of FOI oversight and information policy functions.There is no majority in support of the bill in the Senate.

Faced with this reality it's clearly time for a rethink.

Back in May 2014 Attorney General Brandis said abolition of the office was about savings, about simplifying, streamlining and improving efficiency and effectiveness in the conduct of FOI merit reviews, and reducing the burden on FOI applicants.

If the government sticks with those objectives there are plenty of options short of abolishing the office, a course of action that should never have made it to first base.

The better option however is withdraw the bill and look to ways to simplify, streamline and improve efficiency and effectiveness in provision of access to government information.

I was no fan of the limited Hawke FOI review process conducted in 2012-13 but that report has been sitting in Attorney General Brandis' in-tray since he took office two years ago. 

Dr Hawke's first recommendation was "..that a comprehensive review of the FOI Act be undertaken" and his concluding comment "I believe a complete rewrite of the FOI Act in plain language is now necessary, so that it is readily accessible and easily understood." 

If come 19 October when Pilgrim changes hats again things are no further advanced, the position of information commissioner will need to be filled one way or another.The commissioner is head of agency and as such the accountable authority responsible for governance functions under the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act. 

Certifying entitlement claims too much for busy parliamentarians particularly Bob Katter

ABC picks up on Senator Conroy and Bob Katter not certifying Department of Finance entitlement expenditure for years-noted here four weeks ago. 

Senator Conroy could hear feet in the corridor and has now signed for expenditure back to 2011.

Bob Katter's defence amounts to are you kidding, I run two offices you know....

"More than 100 other MPs have failed to sign their half-yearly certification at least once."

Certification details are listed for each reporting period.

Deep breaths needed instead of talk about binning Big Tobacco access rights

The Nick Baker - Richard McKenzie piece in Fairfax Media on the two pronged attempt to utilise freedom of information laws to obtain data from surveys on smoking has raised some interesting issues. 

However some reactions - that the applicant shouldn't be able to exercise the right to seek access to government information, that this sort of thing may frustrate public health research and may even warrant legislative amendment - seem way over the top. 

(Addendum- an opinion piece from the Los Angeles Times on the right to access scientific research undertaken at public expense-within limits. And more pertinently this on "Big Tobacco' FOI rights on The Conversation UK and this on The Conversation Australian version. I'm with Nola Ries of University of Newcastle-tobacco companies should be free to use FOI laws even if we don't like it.)

Without seeing the detail of what was sought, what was released in NSW and what reasons were given for refusal of access in Victoria it's difficult to muster the outrage running in some commentary, or be concerned the laws don't adequately protect sensitive information and data.

Baker and McKenzie report a lawyer acting for American Tobacco obtained Cancer Institute NSW research into adults' attitudes to smoking through an application under the Government Information (Public Access) Act. But the Victorian Cancer Council "is spending thousands of dollars" fighting an FOI application from the same lawyer in the Civil and Administrative Tribunal "for data from surveys by thousands of Victorian school children and teenagers that reveal their attitudes to smoking and alcohol."

Just what was sought and obtained from the Cancer Institute NSW is unknown. The Chief Cancer Officer, Professor David Currow said "The Cancer Institute NSW was compelled" to provide tobacco survey data requested under the GIPA act.There are plenty of public interest considerations designed to safeguard sensitive information from disclosure but not possible to comment on the decision without more detail.

The GIPA act differs in many respects from Victoria's FOI act.

There, the yet to appear VCAT decision will throw light on the exemption claims in due course.

Both Victorian Cancer Council Director Todd Harper and Professor of Health Policy at Curtin University Mike Daube (see below) are outraged but whether their concerns about release of de-identified data amount to valid exemption claims is yet to be seen.

FOI is no stranger to Big Tobacco but the idea of a 'block tobacco' FOI amendment is just plain silly.

International Commission of Jurists remind that Parliament not Executive fiat decides the fate of OAIC

Bernard Keane in Crikey today on the FOI rollback campaign that includes the unsuccessful push to legislate to abolish the Office of Australian Information Commissioner, and in the meantime crimp its capacity to undertake its full range of functions, coinciding with public service leaders now speaking of how they thwart the law of the land.

On the same subject former NSW Attorney General John Dowd in his capacity as president of the Australian section of the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) writes to Attorney General Brandis, as reported in The Guardian Australia, reminding that the rule of law involves the ongoing effective discharge of the functions of a statutory body such as the OAIC until such time as parliament no longer requires:

... the government is seeking to achieve executively what it cannot achieve legislatively,” Dowd said in the letter to Brandis. “This is of profound concern to the ICJ which has the responsibility of defending the rule of law. “The rule of law is not a nebulous concept but does have some very specific components, one of which is the doctrine of the separation of powers … It is disappointing that we have to draw this simple principle to your attention.”

When a government was seen to be doing executively what it was unable to do by legislation, Dowd wrote, concerns about “insults to rule of law and the doctrine of separation of powers are understandably aroused”.

“When this executive function has the effective result of emasculating a statutory body, which can only be abolished by statute, there can be no doubt that the wall of protection separating the executive from the legislature has been breached,” he said.
Dowd told Brandis a government should not prevent the ongoing effective discharge of the functions of a statutory body that the law required to continue, otherwise “the consequences in a civilised society such as ours would be too disastrous to contemplate”. He said if that were the case, a government could emasculate any statutory body that caused it displeasure.

(Addendum: John Dowd on ABC AM Tuesday morning.)

The bill to abolish the OAIC has been before the Senate since October 2014 and not once brought on for a vote. Meanwhile because of failure to fund and fill positions one commissioner carries the functions of the three positions Parliament established.

Open Government Partnership: Australia on notice to follow through on membership

Toby McIntosh on Freedominfo.org in Washington DC did some sleuthing to identify the unnamed country referred to in the Open Government Steering Committee minutes of its July meeting- and it's Australia

Australia’s lack of action as a member of the Open Government Partnership is “particularly concerning,” the OGP Steering Committee decided at a recent meeting.
The Steering Committee set a new deadline for Australia “to recommit to OGP,” according to recently released minutes of the July 22-23 meeting. (See this page on the OGP website, scroll down.)
After two years as a member, Australia has yet to prepare a National Action Plan, the key component of participation in the OGP in which members make specific commitments on how to advance open government.
Australia, which joined in May of 2013, should have created its first action plan by May of 2014, according to an OGP chart. The submission of a plan is followed by other steps, including a one-year self-evaluation and then an assessment through the OGP Independent Review Mechanism.
Australia was given until the upcoming October OGP Global Summit meeting in Mexico to “recommit.”

The Australian version of course is that the Abbott Government is still 'considering' whether to proceed with Labor's announcement in May 2013 that it intended to join. 

This letter in  August 2014 to the Minister for Finance made it clear the Prime Minister is a key part of the decision tree, instructing that no announcement of Australia's position should be made "until a draft national action plan is submitted for my consideration..."   

A year on in the public domain at least, silence.

Russia is the only country to withdraw from the OGP. Sixty five others are members including all we usually cite as the peer group - USA, UK, Canada, NZ- every country ranked ahead of Australia on the Worldwide Web Foundation Open Government Index, and in our region the current co-chair Indonesia, along with Korea and the Philippines.

McIntosh provides this further background on the laggards

Lithuania, Malta and Turkey were the first members to get a notice about missed deadlines. In February of 2014, the OGP issuing a public statement saying that  reports that there was “little evidence” that the countries’ action plan commitments were being fulfilled. (See previous FreedomInfo.org report.)
Under a revised OGP policy approved in March of 2014, two warnings in a row would trigger a discussion about continued OGP membership – the sanction that the organization, founded on inclusion, voluntary goal-setting and mutual support, hopes to avoid. A country will be in breach if it does not publish a NAP within 4 months of the due date. (See previous FreedomInfo.org article.)
The OGP in August of 2014 has made public 11 letters sent in April informing member governments they were not in compliance with their OGP commitments. (See previous FreedomInfo.org.)
In December of 2014 the OGP cautioned 12 governments that they were falling behind on their OGP responsibilities, announcing the action in a blog post with links to the letters). (See FreedomInfo.org report.)

Open season on information commissioners?

Victoria's plan to enhance FOI watchdog powers stands in sharp contrast to the Federal Government's tenacity in clinging to its plan to abolish the Office of Australian Information Commissioner one way or the other and in the meantime leaving the office with one acting commissioner instead of the three positions parliament established.

Freedom of Information Commissioner Lynne Bertolini issued this Media Statement on Friday that she will step down on 5 September citing the government's intention to  create a new position of Public Access Counsellor. 

Farrah Tomazin in The Age suggests other factors may have contributed, and reports Special Minister of State Gavin Jennings providing this general update on reforms:

Mr Jennings did not go into details of the review, other than to say the government had identified "significant opportunities to reform the FOI system", improve oversight and make it easier for Victorians to access information. He said the new Office of the Public Access Counsellor would have extra powers, including the ability to review decisions to withhold documents based on cabinet-in-confidence exemptions. Mr Jennings said the government changes would include requiring agencies to progress and respond to FOI requests more quickly. A bill to establish the new office will be introduced to Parliament in the first half of next year.

Victoria's Freedom of Information Act represents, well, the finest thinking of the nineteen eighties. 

Hopefully those outside government will be given an opportunity to point towards contemporary good practice before 'significant reforms' are locked in.