International Right to Know Day 28 September

Have a good one. 

 Despite the fact there is a blank when it comes to Australian groups among the 200 organisational members of the founders, FOI Advocates, and on the map of Australia in the world map of RTKD activities 2012. And Australia is not in the list of members of the Open Government Partnership, one year old today, and now with 57 government members - but we live in hope.

On the last mentioned, Australian Information Commissioner Professor John McMillan told the Creating Open Government Conference in Sydney last month that Australian membership is still  "under discussion"- what a marathon!

The development of a national framework for open government policy was an issue my office took up in an Issues Paper in 2010, Towards an Australian Government Information Policy. We plan to return to that theme in another paper in November this year to mark the second anniversary of the office.
A related development mentioned earlier in this conference by other speakers is the international Open Government Partnership (OGP), which 57 countries have now joined. One of the requirements of membership is that a country publish a national action plan that contains concrete open government commitments and projects. Expert external evaluation of a country's performance against the commitments in the country plan is another requirement of OGP membership. Impressive plans have already been published by, among others, the United States, United Kingdom and Canadian governments. The Australian Government has not yet announced whether it will join the OGP, though the matter is under discussion.

On the fore-mentioned interest in right to information advocacy here, Australia's Right To Know has the name but zero recent form.

(Update: not dancing in the street mind you, but the Office of the Queensland Information Commissioner acknowledges Right to Know Day, which also gets a mention in the Office of Australian Information Commissioner weekly email update :
Today is Right to Know Day! Right to Know Day was created at an international meeting of information advocates in Bulgaria in 2002, with the goal of promoting the global movement of increasing access to information and awareness of Freedom of Information (FOI) worldwide.  For more information visit the Freedom  of Information Advocates Network website: http://www.foiadvocates.net/).

Who carries the flag, advancing and protecting information access rights?

Dr Cassandra Goldie of  the Australian Council of Social Service on Q&A on Monday said Australia has 600,000 civil society organisations out there doing all manner of great things. I'm sure that's true if she says so, and that we are all better for it even if the very term "civil society" still doesn't roll off the tongue easily in these parts.

But you are hard pressed to find CSOs that focus on or attach a high and continuing priority to advocacy for information access rights and related issues. Sure we have bodies such as the Public Interest Access Centre, PILCH, Transparency International and the Accountability Round Table alert to these issues who speak up on occasion along with human rights and civil liberties groups, and from the professional ranks, librarians, archivists, law societies and bar associations. And Open Australia who just gets on delivering Hansard in byte sizes on a plate.

As Craig Thomler observed recently however, we lack a robust public discussion on democracy, government openness, transparency and the role of Gov 2.0 in the mix.

No leadership here from an Article XIX, active in Europe and elsewhere, a Campaign for Freedom of Information as in the UK, or national bodies like the National Freedom of Information Coalition and OpentheGovernment.org or the hundreds of groups that belong to them in the US. Not one Australian organisation is listed among the hundreds of worldwide members of the Freedom of Information Advocates Network.

Of course there's the media. The media coalition Australia's Right to Know was formed in 2007 to provide a new stronger profile for FOI and other law reforms, building on the ongoing efforts of media bodies such as the Australian Press Council and the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance.

But as David Salter writing in Crikey in April (Your right to know whatever happened to the Right to Know) noted, after getting off to a big start in 2007 and through until 2009, it has now all but disappeared. The last published submission was October 2009, the last media release May 2010. Salter observed at the time "the looming extinction-by-neglect of the whole Right to Know campaign reflects a huge cultural shift within the managerial ranks of its main champion, News Limited."

The slide continues. In June The  Australian reported that ARTK's Creina Chapman was leaving News to join Tony Abbott's staff. However the website (described by Salter as looking like an unweeded garden) with a few add-ons to a home page for a 2009 conference still lists her as the contact person. When I rang the given number on Monday this week, the amiable fellow on the other end said he knew nothing about ARTK-"only been here three weeks"- and this was the first ARTK call he had received. He undertook to get someone to contact me, but I'm still waiting.

In early 2008 months after my involvement with ARTK as Deputy Chair of the Independent Audit of Free Speech finished I went to see John Hartigan, then head of News Ltd and ARTK, to make a pitch for the establishment of a permanent, professional and appropriately funded body to research, advocate, educate and lobby on freedom of speech, and the public’s right to be informed. I suggested that the media needed to seek out others who shared these interests, and that it cede some power to them so that the coalition could seek to deliver what its name conveyed-Australia's Right to Know. Voices on these issues were weak, sporadic, divided and underfunded and the coalition was well placed to change this. Hartigan listened politely, nodded at the appropriate time but that was it-and my last contact with ARTK.

So in 2012 only a few of those very active 600,000 CSOs spend much time and effort on advocacy on information access issues, and Australia lacks a high profile co-ordinated representative body focused on community interest in advancing the cause. 

Individuals as much as organisations carry the flag. People inside government who have leadership responsibility such as the information commissioners. And outside government academics such as Rick Snell, Moira Paterson and Johan Lidberg, and journalists including Michael McKinnon of the Seven Network, Sean Parnell of The Australian, Jack Waterford and Markus Mannheim of the Canberra Times, Kelvin Bissett of the Nine Network, Matthew Moore and Linton Besser of the Sydney Morning Herald, and Josh Gordon and Melissa Fyffe of The Age to name just a few. And the occasional blogger has a thing to say as well.

(Update- I'm sure there are other prominent individuals such as Dr Nicholas Gruen who should have been mentioned. I'll add them here as I think or others remind me of them.)

There are also lots of public spirited individuals pushing the envelope on access issues associated with important causes right across the country who might support a public voice if we could find one.

What chance a real "australia's right to know." Takers?

Federal FOI reform: Australia's Right to Know loves it.

You know my "good, welcome, but.." reaction to the FOI reform bills and the "opportunity missed" list I've run up at various points since the Exposure Draft appeared in March last year. Then there's the "proof of the pudding" and all that.

Australia’s Right to Know thinks its excellent - not a gap or weakness in sight today.

Australian free speech report card

On World Press Freedom Day, News Ltd boss and Australia's Right to Know leader John Hartigan writing in The Australian provides a report card on progress on free speech issues, suggesting  on the surface little has changed in three three years since he accused the Howard administration of being "the most secretive government we've ever had, even in wartime."


However Hartigan says that underneath, the Rudd government has worked hard at change: "It cannot be accused of laziness or inertia on freedom of speech, and we should celebrate this."Hartigan goes on to give the Government a tick on Freedom of Information reform, although the Reform Bill is yet to pass, and as he says,everything depends on implementation. Overall he gives the Federal government a good report card for free speech so far: "The signs are good, but there's still a long way to go, not least because we were coming from so far behind in the first place." And a special gong for Queensland on FOI reform results with NSW poised to get a new regime underway on 1 July.

In my opinion this assessment of the Federal government is on the overly generous side on FOI and other reforms still in the legislative pipeline. On FOI, talked about for the first year or so as a high priority,  there is nothing concrete to show for two and a half years in office except the abolition of conclusive certificates  and the appointment of John McMillan as Information Commissioner Designate.

 The yet to pass Reform Bill is generally good and welcome but equally noteworthy for unexplained omissions, to mention just a few: the failure to extend the Act to the administration of Parliament, the absence of offence provisions for improperly seeking to influence decisions on access and leaving untouched a provision that empowers a minister to decide on access to an agency's documents, no change in time limits that remain as they were almost 30 years ago, proactive publication requirements that lack teeth and apart from disclosure logs and information about statutory appointments leave it to government agencies to decide what should be published "because they know best." I could go on....

I think on results it's a C rather than what sounds like a B from Hartigan mainly awarded on the basis of effort. 

Margaret Simons on The Content Makers raises another issue about report cards:

.. I could not help feeling, as I read Harto’s fine words, what a report card on the role of newspaper executives and editors would look like. What grade would we give News Limited, and other Right to Know Coalition partners, on issues such as invasion of privacy (thus sabotaging any attempt to forestall restrictive privacy legislation). Sadly, when it comes to media campaigns, the moral highground is awfully slippery.

Media buffs and FOI reform advocates only

In Crikey today, Margaret Simons picks up on my recent post about Australia's Right to Know and, publicly at least, what seems a limp effort on reform of freedom of information laws, particularly in awareness raising and mobilising potential allies to the cause. This is a taste- but non-subscribers can get 21 days free. Simons has asked ARTK  what it is doing. We'll happily publish any reply.

FOI reform voices: co-ordination and leadership missing in action

Richard Ackland in The right to know only what it wants in the Sydney Morning Herald takes The Australian to task over a suppression order sought to prevent publication of a report in which it features, because it contains ''matters critical of the conduct of the applicants that adversely affects the business and commercial reputation of the [publisher] and the personal and professional reputation of the [editor]''. In the lead in Ackland observes:

I wondered why Australia's Right to Know Campaign had gone a bit quiet. This is the outfit driven by the main newspaper groups (including Fairfax) and broadcasters to lobby for fewer legal impediments that get in the way of reporters' access to information. A quick check of the Right to Know's website shows the last big thing to happen was a big free speech jamboree in Sydney a year ago. There have been no papers, reports or analysis since 2008. Maybe it's because The Australian newspaper has decided to change sides and go into the suppression business.

By chance I had written this week to a prominent player in the ARTK group raising similar issues and lamenting the fact that they didn't play harder and more visibly on Freedom of Information reform on a national basis, going  way back to the election of the Rudd Government.

A vigorous campaign would have involved enlisting allies to the cause, seeking to better inform the public about the importance of this issue, and  mounting a collective professional effort to go for gold on the reform front. The few voices that spoke up were all over the place, leading the Senate Committee to observe recently that there were many suggestions for changes to the reform bills, but no agreement on what should be changed, therefore there was no point in or time to consider them seriously, including most of those put forward by ARTK.  And of course many didn't speak up at all. ARTK three years after it formed has no web presence, no publicly available collection of submissions, no scorecard of performance, no coalition partners. There has been no movement on reform in Victoria, SA or WA  and NSW has stalled since the departure of Premier Rees..

Ah what might have been. But there is plenty that could be done before the swords are sheathed to await the "comprehensive" review of the Commonwealth act set for two years after the current reforms before parliament commence.

For example, Louise Milligan of the Seven Network, in today's Australian comments in Victoria is too secretive for the public good on the state's place in the FOI/ openness pantheon-and it's way behind others in her experience

I have discovered that the Victorian government and its agencies are perhaps the slowest and most obstructionist of any in the nation...its politicians and bureaucrats are guilty of a control freakery that would have made Sir Joh blush. It's odd, too, given that the Bracks, now Brumby, government, came to power on a promise of renewed democracy after Jeff Kennett.

Victorians have always liked to think that their state lacked the corruption and cronyism seen in the past in Queensland, NSW and Western Australia. But with the shutters being constantly pulled over their eyes, how would they know? It's an insult to their collective intelligence that this continues.

A suitable next front for a reform campaign, with some grunt, public profile and a collection of shoulders to the wheel?

 

Hyperbole and the human rights debate

The Sydney Morning Herald in its editorial was sceptical about actions recommended in the Brennan Report to protect human rights. But the Weekend Australian was in a class of its own slamming the report in two front page leads, this by Paul Kelly and another by Kelly and Chris Merritt. Kelly labelled "hyperbole" the claim by Opposition Attorney General that the report threatened "the most important de facto alteration to Australia's system of government in our history. " I sent a letter to the editor on Saturday, but no dear reader it's not published today. However to the editor's credit the one letter that made it, written by a manager of a legal service for the homeless, rightly took issue with another claim that a Human Rights Act would be a triumph for elites, arguing instead it would be "a victory for the most marginalised and disadvantaged members of our community."My unpublished contribution:

"George Brandis wasn’t the only one resorting to hyperbole.Your reports of mixed fact and opinion under headlines featuring” enormous problems,” “chaos,” and “poisoned chalice” on the “human rights lobby”, its alleged political agenda to obliterate the Howard cultural legacy and its plans to change our system of government, were over the top.The Australian’s “Right to Know” banner only makes sporadic appearances these days but its interest in rights clearly stops short of any meaningful embrace of broader internationally accepted rights and ways to best protect them. Victoria and the ACT don’t seem to be on another planet despite adopting comparable schemes to the dastardly proposals put forward by Brennan. By the way 16 of the 31 proposals were for protections other than by way of a Human Rights Act. What’s the problem again with initiatives that Paul Kelly acknowledges would bring Australia “into line with international human rights norms”? You give little hope to those of us who are confident we can better define and protect rights and sort out the wrinkles and problems on the way through."

Media organisations clash over FOI reform

Mark Day in The Australian reports on a power struggle within the Australian Press Council partly prompted by a clash over the APC's role and the belief by publishers that it was straying from its mission:

"that increasing resources were being spent on annual state-of-the-media reports and developing policy on issues such as privacy, freedom of information and government secrecy. When the APC and the publishers' new lobbying group The Right to Know clashed on recent government proposals for FoI reform, RTK welcomed the moves, the APC said they did not go far enough and government officials asked which industry voice they should listen to."

They're both right- the Federal reforms were welcome but didn't go far (or fast) enough. On NSW reforms ARTK appears not to have made a submission but the APC managed a view or two. In Queensland on the other hand ARTK was busy- the Premier made a special point in Parliament of singling them out for mention for their contribution.

The state of FOI:a phrase, a sentence or about 240 words.

I know that editors and journalists have to be short and sharp, but in an otherwise fair comment about the state of the game and particularly the wider impact of lies to journalists in today's Australian, the reference to "Freedom of Information laws that barely function" is too harsh. John Hartigan, News CEO and Australia's Right to Know leader at the Free Speech Conference put it this way: "Freedom of Information has not worked as envisaged. In fact it’s become an oxymoron." The first part is right; the second a search for a headline.

A Google News search for "Freedom of Information" pages from Australia turns up plenty of media reports in any week based on documents obtained under the various freedom of information acts. And of course plenty of stories about delays, costs and knockbacks as well. We don't know but can summise about the non-media experience.

As evidence I'll never get a job in the media the extract below is a reminder of the conclusions about FOI in Australia in the Independent Audit of Free Speech Report for ARTK in October 2007.This still to my mind holds up almost 17 months later-I would say that wouldn't I? The question now is whether the current interest in reform will produce solutions to these problems.I notice ARTK has only a 14 page Summary of the Report on its relatively new website. Here is the full text of the 360 pages if you are interested. State of free speech in Australia-pdf.

"FOI laws work reasonably to provide access to personal information about the applicant, and on occasion to information about other important matters of public interest and concern. However, several factors result in FOI working less well in accessing documents relevant to government accountability. An issue in all jurisdictions is that governments have not taken sustained measures to deal with an enduring “culture of secrecy” still evident in many government agencies. Ministers and senior public service leaders have not been consistent strong advocates of open government principles.

FOI performance is patchy across all governments. In some agencies applications are managed in a professional manner and decisions on access reflect the law, its spirit and intent. In other cases the FOI process involves delay, high cost, and limited access to requested documents, often on grounds that suggest determined attempts to protect politically sensitive information. Claims that FOI is achieving its intended purpose, including opening government activities to scrutiny and criticism, are not substantiated by the available evidence.

FOI, in the federal arena in particular, is marked by a high degree of legal technicality which tends to dominate considerations about whether disclosure is in the public interest, or may demonstrate harm to an essential public interest. There are problems and inadequacies in the design of the laws; too much scope for
interpretation of exemption provisions in ways that lead to refusal of access to documents about matters of public interest and concern; cost barriers to access; and slow review processes that often fail to provide cost-effective resolution of complaints."

All happening in Sydney on Tuesday.

Australia's Right to Know Free Speech Conference on Tuesday 24 March- if you won't be there check the program details. If something- the whole thing- grabs you and you have Foxtel or Austar tune in to live coverage on Channel 607.Otherwise, access the live stream here. I'll be there but I don't twitter.

Here's a warm-up on topics (other than the media-privacy framework) by Caroline Overington in today's Australian.

Sunshine Week sets a shining example.

Next week 15-21 March is Sunshine Week in the US- a media initiated annual national campaign designed to heighten public awareness of the importance of open government.This year one feature will be a report on surveys of the information states make available on the web, undertaken in association with the American Society of Newspaper Editors' Freedom of Information Committee, the National Freedom of Information Coalition, and the Society of Professional Journalists' FOI Committee.

The toolkit of terrific resources available free for use by media across the US includes opinion columns, editorial cartoons, informational graphics and public service ads for print and broadcast.

US media owners, publishers and journalists do a great job to build and maintain a constituency for open transparent government, in everyone's interests, by investing in initiatives to improve public understanding of the importance of these issues.This long-term highly professional effort to alert the public to their stake in all this is something the Australian media coalition, Australia's Right to Know, together with like-minded partners, should seek to emulate.The coalition will break new ground by holding a Free Speech Conference in Sydney on 24 March.It's a welcome development, but have a look at Sunshine Week's Calendar of Events and the range of activities and organisations involved- not a one-off either, but part of an ongoing investment of time, money and other resources, deemed worthwhile by the many participants, even in tough financial times.

You'll see some examples of the US materials accompany posts here next week.

Sydney Free Speech Conference in March.

This is the media release about the March conference.

Australia’s Right to Know announced today it would host a national televised conference on the state of Australia’s freedom of speech.

The event, in Sydney on Tuesday 24th March, will bring together academics, lawyers, journalists, public servants, politicians and the public to examine Australia’s free speech problems and discuss the best solutions.

The conference will give a rare insight into the daily behind-the-scenes workings of both the journalists whose job it is to get the news and the officials charged with protecting information that could be harmful.

“It’s time to ramp up this vital issue with a mature debate about what kind of free speech we have and what kind of democracy we want,” said News Limited chairman and chief executive John Hartigan.

Confirmed speakers and panellists include:

· Justice Ronald Sackville AO, Supreme Court, keynote speaker
· Senator John Faulkner, Special Minister of State in charge of reforming The Commonwealth’s Freedom of Information laws
· Senator George Brandis SC, Shadow Attorney-General
· ABC managing director Mark Scott, News Limited chairman and CEO John Hartigan, and other heads of Australia’s Right to Know
· Australian Public Service Commissioner Lynelle Briggs
· Arthur Sinodinos, Regional General Manager Business and Private Banking, NAB; Chief of Staff to former Prime Minister John Howard

· Mark Dreyfus QC, MP, chair of the House of Representatives Legal & Constitutional Affairs Committee

· Paul Whittaker, editor, and Paul Kelly, Editor-at-Large of The Australian

· Laurie Oakes, Nine Network political commentator

· Gail Hambly, Group General Counsel/Company Secretary, Fairfax Media

· Chris Warren, Federal Secretary, Media Entertainment & Arts Alliance

The conference will be broadcast live and in full by Australia’s Public Affairs Channel A-PAC (Foxtel/Austar channel 607), streamed at www.a-pac.tv and hosted by Helen Dalley of Sky News.

Journalist Tony Jones of the ABC’s Lateline will moderate a special Q&A-style debate on Freedom of Information.

The conference will address such issues as:

- How much should governments tell us, and do we have a right to more?
- How restricted is the media’s day-to-day work, and should it change?
- The impact of mobile phones and the internet on privacy and free speech
- When should an individual’s private life make way for the public interest?
- How should whistleblowers be handled when they expose wrongdoing?

Since its launch in May 2007, Australia’s Right to Know – a coalition of the nation’s 12 largest media organisations – has worked to raise awareness, lobby government and facilitate independent research into freedom of speech issues.

Event details

Date: Tuesday 24th March, 2009
Time: 8.30am to 5.30pm
Location: Sofitel Sydney Wentworth, 61-101 Phillip Street, Sydney, NSW 2000

Tickets: $250
To register, visit www.australiasrighttoknow.com.au :

For conference information or to arrange interviews, contact Ben Rawling at Mark Communications (02) 9775 7015 / 0424 644 518 or ben@markcomms.com.au
For queries about the Right to Know Coalition, contact Lucinda Duckett at News Limited on 9288 3125 or duckettl@newsltd.com.au

Conference calls.

After a long period of little happening around the country on the conference front, suddenly two announced in the last few days.

An ad in The Weekend Australian gave some details of Australia's Right to Know Freedom of Speech Conference in Sydney on 24 March, featuring Minister Faulkner, John Hartigan of News Ltd, and others including a Q&A with Tony Jones."Join Australia's leading academics, lawyers, journalists, politicians and public servants for an important debate on our freedom of speech" it says. See www.australiasrighttoknow.com.au or call Dina on 02 9775 7000.

Then in Tasmania the Environmental Defenders Office has a two day event on 6-7 April exploring issues concerning access to public information- A Privilege or a Right?- with David Solomon, Rick Snell and others. They are calling for papers, so content is still something of a work in progress and want the conference to provide input to the Tasmanian review of the FOI Act.

Courts and media rights to access and publish what's doing.

The coalition of media organisations, Australia's Right to Know has published The Review of Suppression Orders and Access to Court Documents in Australia ( ARTK Report), highlighting excessive secrecy associated with the judicial branch of government. The report details the growth of suppression orders across the country, the wide variations and lack of consistency in the judicial approach to granting applications for orders, and the problems for the media in accessing court documents.

Here is a summary from AAP and some commentary from Richard Ackland on the report and associated issues, including (off on a little tangent) observations about instances of media self-interest in not reporting on some matters close to home.

The Standing Committee of Attorneys General at a meeting in Brisbane last week saw a "commitment of the States and Territories to further develop the framework for a national electronic register of suppression orders."Communique and Summary of Decisions.

That's something but there is a long way to go on this one.

FOI processing-12 years outmatched by 30

The Independent Audit into the State of Free Speech in Australia, conducted last year on behalf of the coalition of media organisations, Australia's Right to Know, included a lot of stories about excessive delay in dealing with freedom of information applications. Greg Chamberlin of the Courier Mail took the prize: an application in 1993 for information from the Queensland Treasury for documents relating to Jupiter's Casino resulted in a determination in June 2005.( Report 6.10)

But how about this report from the US Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press that a court in Washington state has just ordered disclosure of documents sought in an application 30-yes 30-years ago?

Thanks to Charles Davis US FOI Advocate for the heads up.

Australia's Right to Know report card

Australia's Right to Know, the coalition of major media organisations, marked its first anniversary yesterday, with Chairman John Hartigan of News Limited releasing a short report card of pluses and minuses on freedom of speech issues over the last 12 months. Overall, pretty similar to the assessment of Christopher Warren of the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance referred to here the other day- some positives, some disappointments, but high hopes things will get a lot better in the coming year.

Others, me included, are concerned that there are no signs of progress on many of the issues identified in last year's Audit prepared for the coalition, and that positive Federal commitments, for example to a pro disclosure culture, are still parked in "good intentions". We are also concerned that the coalition itself has not done more to create a constituency for strong and prompt action by all governments on existing constraints on access to, and publication of information in the public interest, and pursued these issues in a more vigorous and publicly visible manner.

Here is an exchange between Rick Snell and me in the last few days, just before the welcome re-emergence of the coalition in the public domain. Rick was commenting on my post about the contrast between our patience, waiting for change here, and the more assertive approach of those behind the National 2008 FOI Summit, held in Philadelphia earlier this month:

"Some very good points. However the Australian Right To Know coalition, after some good research and lobbying efforts seem to have largely left the field.

I was hoping that they would have a continuing agenda and not be content with a few commitments for change made by 1 government (as opposed to a truly national campaign aimed at both the States and the Commonwealth).

There is a need to both build a constituency for change and to constantly monitor performance. The Americans have done this activity extremely well.

I am at a loss that the ARTK and Australian Press Council have not organised a national conference to debate the issues and to motivate and nurture future research.

I am being approached by an increasing number of journalism and law students undertaking research in this field.

The lessons from FOI experience around the world is that information management requires constant attention and adjustment. It also needs a well informed and vigilant FOI community.

The ARTK coalition is in an ideal position to take a number of steps to help develop that community in Australia.

Rick



Rick

11:23 PM

Peter Timmins said...

Rick,

I share your disappointment. Even when the Federal Government comes good on its commitments,there is along list of other matters that need attention in Canberra and the states.The Coalition is well placed to lead, but publicly at least, is hard to find or hear."

Let's hope the first anniversary of the coalition marks a turning point in its development into a strong, permanent, well resourced and widely supported voice for Australia's Right to Know.

2008 FOI Summit in Philadelphia

They're a less patient lot in the United States where last week the National Freedom of Information Coalition held the 2008 FOI Summit, with what sounds like a great program, and a call to arms to fight for First Amendment rights in a keynote speech by Toni Locy, who faces a $5000 fine for every day she refuses to reveal her sources for stories about the 2001 anthrax attacks in the US. (Thanks to Charles Davis for the lead).

A former investigative reporter Ted Gup told participants that "journalists need to do a better job of explaining to readers why they should be concerned about expanding ''secretocracy'' in government and how it directly affects their lives

Proceedings included an FOI Hero award for Bill Chamberlin of the Marion Brechner Citizen Access Project.

Those pushing for change here might have all benefited from this panel discussion:

Coalition Care and Feeding—How do you keep that fledgling FOI group going, or take the next step? Join veterans of the FOI game who have "been there, done that" for tips on sustainability.

Patience a virtue while waiting for improvement in press freedom

Patience - www.mythprints.com

Derek Barry on Woolly Days provides a good summary of the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance 2008 report into the state of press freedom in Australia, "Breaking the shackles", and its commentary on Legislation and the Courts, Government Actions Restricting Press Freedom, International Affairs, and Attacks on Press Freedom in the Asia Pacific Region.

Overall, according to Federal Secretary Christopher Warren:

"Were this to be a school report card, after years of under achievement this year’s card would still read: “Could do better”, but would note that: “Some positive signs started to appear before the end of last term ... we hope for a marked improvement next year.”

View the full report here

PM says future begins as soon as practically possible

Whether this represents an advance on "we'll introduce Freedom of Information law reform by the end of the year" remains to be seen, but the Prime Minister in speaking at an event at Fairfax Media yesterday, again made it clear change is on the way as soon as practicable.

In addition to the oft repeated commitments to promoting a pro disclosure culture, abolishing conclusive certificates and establishing an information commissioner, the PM said fees would be reviewed "to ensure they are compatible with a culture of disclosure and transparency". And more: "Labor is committed to ... implementing each and every one of the commitments we made in response to the Right to Know Coalition."

Good on Fairfax chief executive David Kirk for reminding the PM of last week's events including the police raid on the Sunday Times in Perth and of the arcane views in his Treasury department about the public interest:

"the Treasury denied a freedom-of-information request because they feared that it might spur too much debate on an important issue of the day. Since when, in a democracy, do we fear too much debate? These are retrograde - indeed, they are dangerous - steps, and are unworthy of our democracy."

The PM appears to have dismissed this as "the inevitable argy bargy between governments and the press ... There will always be argy bargy over this document and that document."

Well yes, but getting rid of hoary old chestnuts like this as a reason for refusing access is a matter of the law and government policy- something the PM's reforms should be addressing right now.

Meanwhile back in Canberra The Australian reports the Immigration Department has refused an application under the FOI Act by Dr Haneef's lawyers for documents relating to their client because disclosure "may jeopardise future investigations and discourage bureaucrats from giving frank advice to ministers". Maybe the first reason cuts some ice but the second is another of those chestnuts Mr Rudd and his ministers need to toss on the fire.

World Press Freedom Day,3 May

On the 60th anniversary of the UN Declaration of Human Rights, a freelance journalist from Mexico, Lydia Cacho Ribeiro has been awarded the World Press Freedom Prize for her efforts to expose political corruption, organized crime and domestic violence in the face of death threats, an attempt on her life and legal battles.

UNESCO provides some food for thought for political leaders everywhere and for many public servants we could name, concluding:

"Ensuring freedom for the media around the world is a priority. Independent, free and pluralistic media are central to good governance in democracies that are young and old. Free media can ensure transparency, accountability and the rule of law; they promote participation in public and political discourse, and contribute to the fight against poverty. An independent media sector draws its power from the community it serves and in return empowers that community to be full a partner in the democratic process.

Freedom of Information and Freedom of Expression are the founding principles for open and informed debate. New technology will continue to evolve and allow citizens to further shape their media environments as well as access a plurality of sources. The combination of access to information and citizen participation in media can only contribute to an increased sense of ownership and empowerment."