Australian Privacy Awards

The winners in the various categories of Australia's Privacy awards announced on Wednesday included Justice Michael Kirby of the High Court, who took the Australian Privacy Medal. Justice Kirby's chaired the OECD Working Party that developed the privacy principles in 1980 that became the basis for rules regarding handling personal information in many developed countries, and was the President of the Australian Law Reform Commission when its report provided the framework for the Australian Privacy Act of 1988.

Medicare Australia won the Grand Award. And you can relax about personal information when next in the dentist's chair- the Australian Dental Association won the Community and NGO award.

Plus ca change.......

Then again some justifications for decisions to withhold information being put forward by members of Mr Rudd's own government have a depressing familiar ring. Like this from Parliamentary Secretary Jan McLucas who told the Senate yesterday why a Freedom of Information request for a report prepared by a CSIRO expert on the potential marine impact of effluent from the proposed Gunns paper mill had been refused by a departmental official

"The document sought by Senator Milne contains material that is preliminary and based on a number of assumptions. The document was not commissioned by any person and has not been peer reviewed or validated by field data. Dr Herzfeld states in the document that the modelling undertaken is unverified for accuracy. There is a strong likelihood that the material in the document could erroneously be interpreted or presented as final rather than preliminary or as based on fact rather than assumptions. The discussion based on such an interpretation or presentation could mislead the public and create uncertainty, pressure and complexity for Gunns Ltd in its dealings with its stakeholders, including the general public."

Thanks to OpenAustralia.org for the great new alerts on activity in the Parliament

PM puts shoulder to the wheel on increased transparency for schools

Good on the Prime Minister for picking up the ball from his deputy and making increased transparency and accountability in our schools one of the key elements in the next stage of reform of the education sector.Here's part of what he said at the National Press Club yesterday:

"I appreciate there can be debate about the most reliable indicators of school effectiveness. But I cannot understand why public institutions such as schools should not be accountable to the community that funds their salaries and their running costs. Right now, we do not have accurate, comprehensive information to allow rigorous analysis of what schools and students are achieving. This must change.Parents have a right to information to inform their family’s decision making about school enrolment. It is important, too, that this information gives parents the full picture. Simplistic league tables don’t really tell us how well a school is performing. They don’t tell us about the student population that the school started with – and its level of educational advantage.Everyone understands why a private school on Sydney’s north shore might do better than a comprehensive government high school in the outer suburbs. But it is not unreasonable to expect that schools with a similar mix of students and similar starting points should do equally well. What parents most want to know is what difference a school is going to make – in other words, the extent to which it is adding value to the results of their students. Parents overseas can get this information. Australian parents – and students – deserve the same. That is why today I announce that we will be making agreement on individual school performance reporting a condition of the new national education agreement to come into effect from 1 January 2009.Within a year, we want to see increased information available to Australian parents. And within three years, a report that shows not just how their child is doing, but how their child’s school is performing compared to similar schools.Knowing where there is underperformance will help us to target additional resources."

The PM recognised there will be plenty of argy-bargy over this. As The Australian reports today

"For years, state Labor administrations have sided with unions to reject transparency and have aggressively fought media attempts to use Freedom of Information laws to secure information on the relative performance of schools."

He's right to push hard on this one.

FOI delivers on medical mistakes,but oh so slowly

The 7 Network's headline grabbing Freedom of Information success (after eight months of trying) in getting access to information about medical errors in western Sydney public hospitals, including the fact that 19 procedures were carried out on the wrong patient or body part, and that 49 deaths may have been avoided if adequate care had been provided, gives rise to the obvious question raised by the NSW Opposition- why don't we have routine disclosure about performance in the health system?

Then there's the question about why disclosure comes only after a long drawn out and expensive battle for the applicant, and for the taxpayer who has funded the time of those resisting disclosure for all this time.

Increased transparency would contribute to improved performance and provide a much needed incentive for all in the system to do better.

Who knows about Privacy Awareness Week?

Who could cavil at the idea of Privacy Awareness Week, launched this very week by the various privacy commissioners? We could all benefit from a bit more awareness of the many and increasing challenges to our "right to be left alone". And some of the events such as recognition of achievement through the Federal Commissioner's Awards are a good thing.

I don't think Greens MLC Lee Rhiannon has any problem with the concept or the involvement of the office of the NSW Privacy Commissioner, but as she points out in this media release it all rings a bit hollow, given the state government's record on privacy protection:

"This Privacy Awareness Week there is little to celebrate when it comes to the NSW government's support individual's privacy...Poor privacy protection in NSW comes at a time when technological and administrative advancements and increased police powers pose significant threats to individual rights. In this internet age, NSW now has outdated privacy legislation overseen by a part-time Privacy Commissioner. Privacy NSW had its funding and staff slashed in 2003 and has never recovered, becoming little more than an answering phone. In the meantime the NSW government has introduced legislation that rings alarm bells for privacy, for example establishing a photo ID card, electronic health records and very weak workplace surveillance laws."

An illustration of Rhiannon's point perhaps is the lack of excitement about the week, or events for privacy awareness, on the NSW Privacy Commissioner's website

Cost cutting and accountability

The Canberra Times highlights the impact of Federal expenditure cuts on the operation of government departments, with important accountability bodies raising concerns about the impact on the conduct of their functions:

"Their plight, hinted at in public well before now, became common knowledge this week when Parliament's Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit held public hearings in Canberra as part of its inquiry into the effect of the efficiency dividend on small agencies. On Wednesday, Commonwealth Ombudsman John McMillan told the committee that the cuts risked ''diminishing our effectiveness as an accountability institution''. Auditor-General Ian McPhee said the funding cuts meant the Australian National Audit Office would have to cut back on the number of audits it conducted this year, from 50 to 45. McPhee said, ''The efficiency dividend is no longer coming out of efficiencies but is impacting directly on the programs that we are delivering. At least five other bodies the High Court, the Federal Magistrates Court, the Australian Law Reform Commission, the Office of the Inspector General of Intelligence and Security, and the Insolvency and Trustee Service of Australia have registered similar complaints, suggesting this is more a cri de coeur than any orchestrated exercise to pressure the Government into reconsidering its budgetary edicts."

What amounts to an across the board 3.5% cut in operating expenditure this year would seem certain to impact on many administrative functions including freedom of information to some degree. The usual means of achieving cuts, to reduce staff, could exacerbate already poor and unsatisfactory performance in this area in some agencies, partly the result of consistent underfunding over the years.

A bit of lateral thinking might identify some non-staff savings in the FOI and related fields that could come from more routine disclosure of information; no more silly battles over documents the release of which would result in no real harm to important public and other interests; not engaging high cost lawyers to run cases in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, etc,etc.

But reduced costs in this area of government, and a squeeze on agencies such as the Ombudsman don't sound consistent with the claims things are moving in the direction of more open, transparent and accountable government. And a properly resourced Information or Freedom of Information Commissioner is still just a twinkle in Senator Faulkner's eye.

Two takes on climate of disclosure

The Age today ( and the Australian Financial Review yesterday) have seized on comments earlier this week by Australian Public Service Commissioner Lynelle Briggs on Freedom of Information at a Walkley Foundation Conference in Canberra, with both reports focusing almost exclusively on her remarks about the media. This from The Age:

"...while she supported the principle of disclosure,(Ms Briggs said) sensationalised reporting of documents obtained under freedom-of-information laws was not helping a national campaign by journalists and their employers to free up the system.

"The media should accept some responsibility for the current state of FoI," Ms Briggs told a Canberra conference.

"The extensive use of FoI editors has contributed significantly to the current impasse by flooding government with deliberate fishing expeditions and requests designed specifically to embarrass ministers," the commissioner said. "I'd like to see more sensible - and less sensationalised - reporting of the information released within an accurate context."

I was the other speaker in the session "The climate of disclosure:the public service and the right to know" so can tell you first hand that she made it clear she sees benefit from maximum disclosure.In addition to a serve at the media she also had some important things to say about improving transparency through more routine disclosure of policy research and other initiatives that would represent significant and positive change in access generally, and FOI performance in particular.The full text of her remarks is here

My comments at the conference were along the lines that the climate of disclosure within the public service, historically, has been on the cold to cool side, not assisted by over 100 secrecy and confidentiality laws, and an enduring culture of secrecy in some agencies that has not been adequately addressed by successive governments over the years. While there have been claims the climate is warming and a couple of examples, there is also evidence that old habits of excessive secrecy continue. These are my notes for those interested.

On the vexed question of access to policy advice, and responsible reporting, that the Commissioner raised, this is from a post here in early June following the leak of the views of four departments on a proposal that went to cabinet:

"We should be entitled to know through designated procedures(not leaks at the whim of someone in the system) what government knows unless some harm to essential public interests would result. Governments need thinking space to weigh advice and make a decision, then choose to act on the advice of this expert or that, or not at all, and to explain itself. However a government serious about transparency should not be trying to limit what we know about the views of its experts by locking the papers up for 30 years when they will be released into open access. Disclosure of the assessments of government advisers, no matter how this occurs, should not endanger the prospect of frank and candid advice in future. The Government should be demanding this sort of advice from its public servants on an ongoing basis."

Lateness not a fatal flaw to NSWADT jurisdiction

The NSW Administrative Decisions Tribunal, in its Freedom of Information and privacy review jurisdictions at least, seems to spend an enormous amount of time on jurisdictional issues, suggesting the need for examination of the underlying legislation to cure defects that give rise to problems and uncertainty.

One of many such issues has been whether the Tribunal has powers to consider an application for review of a Freedom of Information application received later than 60 days after an internal review determination, or the completion of consideration of a complaint by the Ombudsman. While some decisions have taken the contrary position, the prevailing view has been that the provision in the FOI Act stipulating the 60 day deadline is absolute, and that a late application must fail on jurisdictional grounds.

The Appeal Panel, chaired by Tribunal President Judge O'Connor, has now decided this is wrong and that the Tribunal can consider a late application, but is only likely to exercise discretion to hear such a matter if there is a reasonable explanation for the applicant not acting within the already generous time allowed for review applications. The Appeal Panel acknowledges there is still doubt about the law, and that it would be far better if this was addressed by clear legislation, as is the case in Federal and Victorian law[61-62].

Bad luck for those who missed the boat previously, where being late in lodging an application with the Tribunal was held to be a fatal flaw. The Appeal Panel noted [27] the situation had worked unfairly against applicants in a number of instances.

And what ever happened to the statutory review of the Administrative Decisions Tribunal Act which the Act required to be tabled in Parliament in 2003 and which may have identified some of these problems and possible solutions? Or to the Government response to a Parliamentary Committee report on Tribunal jurisdiction released in November 2002? In the Tribunal's annual report last year President O'Connor expressed the hope both might appear before the end of 2007. Any sightings?

Accentuate the positive, or a hole in the bucket?

Headline writers, like the rest of the population, divide into "glass half empty","glass half full " groupings, as illustrated this morning in reporting on the Queensland Government's response on Freedom of Information reform."Anna Bligh shields her cabinet in revamp of FOI laws" in The Australian; "Government to loosen reins on Cabinet secrecy" in The Courier Mail . I'm sticking with my "rolled gold" of yesterday. Of course us armchair critics can always see ways for gold medal winners to improve performance.

Queensland takes gold on FOI reform

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh has announced that the Government has accepted all but two of the Solomon review Panel's 141 recommendations for Freedom of Information changes, 23 with some qualification. There are still steps to be taken to translate intent into law, and to change attitudes in government about the public right to access information, but this is rolled gold reform.

A whole of government information policy to increase proactive release of information, with CEOs to be told to get cracking now to see what can be done straight away; a new simplified act to be called the Right to Information Act with a strong objects clause to ensure disclosure considerations don't get waylaid by "exemption creep"; clear governance responsibilities for making all this work assigned to the Premier and the Director General of her department.This is seriously good stuff.

Congratulations to the Premier and the many others involved who have brought the reform package to this stage, particularly David Solomon and his small crew who crafted ideas about best practice in the information age into a workable set of measures.

Not surprisingly there is room for a few quibbles but not today. For the moment at least, Queensland has set the standard for the rest of the country, where reform is still in the air. Some such as the Federal Minister John Faulkner, the ACT and Tasmanian governments have shown real interest in what's been happening in Queensland. Who knows some of the sentiment may waft over borders to effect even those who have shown no interest (South Australia) or who can manage only a polite nod when someone else- the Ombudsman- starts to do some work on the subject (NSW).

Here is the Government response and the Solomon Review

More the merrier as FOI reform crops up in the west

Not to be left out, the Opposition in WA have now hopped on board the integrity, honesty and transparency train.

Tassie joins improved accountability and transparency push

Tasmanian Premier David Bartlett has announced a 10 point plan to "clean up the mess " including

A review of the Freedom of Information Act, including more staff and resources.

Improved protection for whistleblowers.

A register for lobbyists.

Strengthened codes of conduct for ministers, parliamentarians and ministerial staff.

A recommendation to establish an independent investigative body or power.

The Premier's media release and fact sheets give more detail. On FOI:

"An immediate review of the Freedom of Information Act, with a view to improving, if necessary, access to information for all Tasmanians, as well as of the administration of the act.

This will include a thorough look at the recommendations of the reviews already conducted of both the Commonwealth legislation and the recent Queensland act review.

In fact, the Solomon Review of the Queensland FOI system will be the starting point for this review.

Secondly, we will significantly strengthen the implementation of the act by providing additional resources in the training, salary and staff numbers of FOI officers and units, as well as the development of rigorous manuals and guidelines for use by people working in this area across government agencies.

The Department of Justice will oversee this review, but it will be conducted with the use of independent FOI experts from outside of our government and outside of Tasmania.

The make up of this panel of experts and the Terms of Reference will be released publicly in the coming weeks.

This is something which we will commence now."

Good to see the reform movement is now on the agenda in all but a few of our jurisdictions, although we are yet to see the colour of any government's money.

Media Watch on the media and privacy

Last night's ABC TV's Media Watch was devoted entirely to discussion of the Australian Law Reform Commission proposal for an action for breach of privacy, and media reaction or overreaction, depending on your point of view. It followed themes commented on here last week. The transcript( or video) provides a good overview of the opinions of the critics and Commission President David Weisbrot, together with some useful links.

While there is a basis for concern that we don't have freedom of speech firmly established in the law, and that Australian courts have not shown much interest in examining in a defamation case whether a publisher acted responsibly in the circumstances, is there a basis for this claim by Sam North, the Managing Editor of the Sydney Morning Herald that judges can't be trusted to interpret a statute in a manner consistent with Parliament's intentions :

Jonathan Holmes: In your experience how much weight do judges in this country give to freedom of expression to the media's right to free speech?

Sam North: Very little... They have an antipathy towards the media and freedom of expression and freedom of speech doesn't rate very highly.

Jonathan Holmes: So if it was up to individual judges to weigh the right of privacy on the one hand and the right of media to free speech on the other, how do you think you'd go?

Sam North: I think we would go badly.

We are all entitled to "think" whatever we like about the future and to express our view. My five cents worth is that we might all be better off with something on the statute book that defines the broad parameters of a cause of action, balancing as best we can the interests involved.The alternatives are to proscribe such a cause of action ( courageous in the Sir Humphrey sense), or leave it to the courts to respond or not, to changing community attitudes to new threats to privacy, both here and internationally.

Privacy cause of action commentariat in the ring

The match up continues today with some in the red corner, others in the blue, and still evidence that some critics of the statutory cause of action haven't quite come to grips with the proposal. So David Flint in The Australian observes:

"Extraordinarily, there is no defence of public interest, something which had been in the earlier discussion paper. Instead the court is to take such considerations "into account" in a balancing exercise. Surely, if we are going to have a new cause of action, proof of public interest should be the end of the matter."

The public interest isn't something you pick up off the shelf and say "Eureka!" In all sorts of areas a balancing of various interests is involved.The proposal is that this issue is one for the plaintiff, right up front.The action could fail at the first hurdle- on public interest/freedom of expression grounds-even before a defence is required .

David Weisbrot and Les McCrimmon of the Australian Law Reform Commission who have spent the last two years listening, pondering and analysing the options have this to say in The Sydney Morning Herald :

"The commission's final recommendation is that a legal action should be available to remedy a serious invasion of personal privacy, where the individual (a) had a reasonable expectation of privacy and (b) the conduct complained about would be regarded as highly offensive to a reasonable person. Further, the plaintiff would have to satisfy the court in each case that (c) the public interest in privacy outweighs other matters of public interest - including the interests in informing the public about matters of public concern and in allowing freedom of expression.By including the public interest test, covering only highly offensive conduct, and placing the onus of proof squarely on the person complaining of the breach, the commission has set a very high bar - taking into account the concerns of artists and media organisations about respecting freedom of the press and freedom of expression. Indeed, some privacy advocates and civil libertarians argue that we have set the bar much too high."

Elsewhere Chris Merritt writing in The Australian ("Tort reform") also doesn't attach much significance to the requirement that the plaintiff would have to address this issue to found a cause of action.

"Even if the cause of action had credible defences for the media -- which is not the case -- the mere fact of its existence would transform privacy law into one of the hottest practice areas."

And money for jam for lawyers? Maybe, maybe not- Weisbrot and McCrimmon point out it hasn't done much to line the pockets of lawyers in those Canadian provinces where something similar has been on the statute book for some years.

There is plenty more, but two other sparring partners are Greg Barns (Online Opinion)
and Richard Ackland in the Sydney Morning Herald.

FOI delivers grist to the right to know in WA campaign

Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act have partly been responsible for keeping the explosion at the natural gas plant at Varanus Island on the front pages in Perth during the state election campaign.Who could disagree with Opposition Treasury spokesman,(ahem) Troy Buswell:

"The people of Western Australia deserve to know the truth. They don't deserve over after over of political spin."

Leading to this retort from the Treasurer, something Mr Buswell is sure to hear often in the next weeks:

Mr Ripper returned fire, saying he took "great exception" to be called a liar by Mr Buswell, who he said had not told the truth over the chair-sniffing incident and support for former leader Matt Birney in a leadership spill.

The Premier denies any cover up.

Welcome call for calmer consideration

Glad to see that a couple of other media wise men have joined others such as Matthew Ricketson and Jack Waterford mentioned here yesterday, to blow the whistle on some of the over the top reaction to the Australian Law Reform Commission proposal for a cause of action for breach of privacy.

Mark Day in The Australian, suggests there is time and scope for a debate about all this, and little need for concern that the proposal will impede reasonable media activity .

The following is by Eric Beecher, a former editor of the Sydney Morning Herald and appeared in yesterday's Crikey:

"It's an article of faith for journalists and most others in the media industry: privacy laws are bad and therefore, implicitly, bad for freedom of the press.

Which is why the chorus of media industry response to this week's Australian Law Reform Commission's recommendations for new laws that would give people the right to sue for invasion of privacy all comes from the same well-worn hymn sheet.

A chorus led by The Right to Know Coalition, an organisation made up of media groups like Fairfax, News and the ABC -- lustily supported by battle-weary protaganists like media lawyer Peter Bartlett (who also happens to advise Crikey on litigious matters) -- today argued in The Age that "the recommendation to introduce a tort of privacy could be likened to hitting a nut with a sledgehammer".

But at the risk of questioning a venerated sacred cow -- and at the risk of muddying one's own patch -- isn't it legitimate to ask whether the media is on solid ground when it continues to rage against all and any kind of privacy limitations?

Of course, most sensible people would oppose privacy laws that could stifle exposure of corruption or improper behaviour by politicians, public officials and others who affect the viability of the democratic process. But do most sensible people also support the right of photographers to stalk celebrities, of reporters to expose the s-x lives of non-entities or of News of The World journalists to plant a video camera in a pr-stitute's bra in order to film the s-xual habits of a sports entrepreneur.

The problem here is of context and proportionality. In the Watergate context, any restraint on media investigation is appalling. In the News of the World context, it is difficult to defend either the media's behaviour, its ethics or its arguments for legal protection to invade privacy.

A completely responsible media would have no trouble eliciting widespread support for conducting its fourth estate role with vigour. In the absence of such a beast, it's getting much harder to reject the alternate view -- as articulated today by the president of the Australian Council for Civil Liberties, Terry O'Gorman -- that the "so-called right to know" has been "elevated in some quarters into the right to do anything".

Wisdom of experience from former Victorian Premier

John Cain was Premier of Victoria when the Freedom of Information Act was introduced in 1983. In the Herald Sun today he reflects on some of the lessons learnt through experience since, and offers some advice to those currently at the helm of the state Labor Government. Forget about the ludicrous plan to provide for up to 75 days to respond to applications, speed up the process and tighten up on business claims regarding"commercial in confidence."

The following observations are relevant to government leaders throughout the country:

"What is needed, 26 years after my government introduced the FOI law, is to have it truly respected by politicians and public servants......The real problem here is public service culture. In some parts it still rejects the notion of FOI. The secrecy and "we know best" syndrome that is cherished in the public sector is alive and well. In these times of the internet, a more enquiring and better educated community, it just does not wash. People want to know things - and so they should...In 1982-3 we sought to "educate" public servants to "live with" FOI. This should be done again.. Community acceptance of public policy is enhanced by full disclosure. If FOI worked properly, it would create a climate where the need for a Crime Commission was diminished. "

Has any Victorian Government leader said a word on the subject since the FOI Amendment Bill failed to pass the upper house earlier in the year?

In the NSW ADT, what an agency says about documents held, goes.

The new harsh reality arising from the NSW Court of Appeal decision that the Administrative Decisions Tribunal cannot look behind an agency claim about what relevant documents are held is captured in this Tribunal decision dismissing a review application:

"In the course of his reasons, Basten JA noted that the Commonwealth Freedom of Information Act 1982 is drafted differently. In particular, s24A of the Commonwealth Act specifically confers power on an agency to refuse a request for access to a document if all reasonable steps have been taken to find the document, and the agency is satisfied that the document is in the agency’s possession but cannot be found, or does not exist. A decision to refuse access on that basis is reviewable by the Commonwealth Administrative Appeals Tribunal under s55(1)(a), as “a decision refusing to grant access to a document in accordance with a request”.

The Court of Appeal decision is of course binding on the Tribunal, and is clear. The Tribunal has no jurisdiction to go behind an agency’s determination that it has provided access to all the documents it holds that fall within the terms of a request for access. The applicant’s reliance on the Federal Court decision in Chu v Telstra Corporation Ltd [2005] FCA 1730 is misplaced, given the differences in drafting between the Commonwealth Act and the New South Wales FOI Act. In this matter the applicant requested access to the “file” referred to in Sergeant Weston’s report dated 28 February 2006. The respondent has provided access to what it says is the only document that falls within the scope of that request, namely Senior Sergeant Fitzjohn's fax dated 10 February 2006. The applicant's contention that there must be more documents is not a determination reviewable under s53. In the absence of jurisdiction, the appropriate course is to dismiss the application."[20-21]

Another battle pits vested interest against public benefits from transparency

Of course Acting Prime Minister Julia Gillard is right in taking every opportunity to get the message out that we need greater transparency about school performance. In a long list of interviews she has pushed the issue along in recent weeks with this basic theme:

"I would like to see performance information for schools available in the public domain and available most particularly to parents. And the reason we want to do that is to not create simplistic league tables that tell you nothing. We want there to be rich performance information available. We want to understand who is studying in each school, the number of children in each school who may face some form of educational disadvantage and need extra help. And we want to understand how schools are attaining so we can compare schools in like positions and if one’s doing better than the other, find out why and then spread that best practice. It’s in everybody’s interest, and certainly the interest of every Australian child studying at school today, for the maximum amount of information about our education system and their school to be available publicly and we will be pressing for that."

Mark Coultan offers some lessons on this from personal experience in New York, where the Minister recently saw first hand the performance benefits from greater transparency. As Coultan (and this editorial) in the Sydney Morning Herald points out " it is this sort of information that the entire education establishment, including teachers' unions and state governments, is determined to suppress."Here is a prime example from Western Australia:

"WA Council of State School Organisations president Robert Fry said data about school performance and demographics should be kept secret because it would invite unfair comparisons between schools."

Go Julia!

Is frenzy the right word?

There are plenty more opinions about privacy reform proposals to come, but Matthew Ricketson in The Age today seems to share the view expressed here yesterday about the "end of the world as we know it" line running strongly in some sections of the media:

"In the weeks leading up to the release of the Australian Law Reform Commission's massive report on privacy, the Right to Know coalition has been sounding the alarm at the prospect of a new law against invasion of privacy.''Privacy threat to celebrity coverage'' was the headline in the Media supplement of The Australian on July 31 for its lead story, which began: ''The celebrity media industry could be thrown into turmoil by moves to restrict reporting on public figures''. Am I the only person who thinks this reads rather like an item in the satirical American newspaper The Onion or an out-take from The Chaser?"

The short answer is no.Ricketson goes on to acknowledge that there may be some validity to the concerns expressed about the proposed cause of action, but as public cynicism about the media is widespread, by focusing on the proposed law's impact on the media, the coalition risks narrowing the debate unduly.He suggests some other issues, for example, the privacy threats from the embrace of new technology should be attracting media interest.

The Canberra Times( "Mixed reaction to privacy proposals") seems to have picked up Ricketson's message in a broad assessment of the report, and Jack Waterford in the same paper( "What we can't know hurts you") has a thoughtful analysis of legitimate claims to privacy, the rise of BOTPA ("Because of the Privacy Act") and government accountability, including this:

"BOTPA is one, if only one, of the reasons for general media cynicism and suspicion about proposals for new privacy laws. Another one, about which the public ought to be quite cynical, is the fact that some sections of the commercial media thrive and profit from invading the privacy of celebrities, starlets, models and sometimes ordinary non-consenting members of the public who have stumbled into a public spotlight. Trivial gossip has become bigger and bigger business in most cases with the implicit consent of most of the ''victims'' but has very little to do with the public interest, or with reasons why the media can, or ought to be able to, claim that in respect of its monitoring of the exercise of public power it is acting in the public interest."

Elsewhere( including in The Age) the headlines are enough to disappoint Ricketson:
"Overkill in defence of privacy"- The Age, but at least the other side in "Civil liberties group for media reform"
"Privacy laws shield malfeasance"- The Australian. The editorial sets up a straw man with this warning: "..it would be a serious mistake to remake the rules governing the operation of the media by enshrining privacy as an inalienable right which, at all times and in all circumstances, trumps all other considerations."
"If you've nothing to hide"- The Australian.
"New law to hide behind"- Herald Sun.
And a less outraged "Right to know(2):privacy- Sydney Morning Herald.