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Thursday, May 31, 2007

Still waiting for the details...

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The Australian Labor Party keeps saying ( in the very fine print in this article ) that it is in favour of proper freedom of information la...

Familiar refrains on FOI

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A flurry of information commissioner annual reports have hit the news overseas in the last couple of days. Canada's Federal Information ...
Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Maybe light at the end of the "hygiene in restaurants" tunnel

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We have already congratulated the pro disclosure of councils Blacktown and Woollahra for supplying information about restaurants in their ...
Tuesday, May 29, 2007

MPs 'phone home' (yours)

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No place to hide from politicians now. Not only are they outside the scope of the Federal Government's 'Do Not Call' register, b...

Expensive fishing trip

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Maybe not quite a record, but this report that the National Tertiary Education Union has been told that a Freedom of Information request fo...

Canada's most secret government department

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The Canadian Association of Journalists has announced the winner of its 2007 Code of Silence Award, the Department of Foreign Affairs. The ...
Sunday, May 27, 2007

Victorian decision illustrates conservative FOI law

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In a recent blog we mentioned the Victorian Court of Appeal decision that overruled a Tribunal judgment that would have granted a woman acc...
Thursday, May 24, 2007

Government speaks (softly) on information on restaurants

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The silence from the NSW Government, mentioned in our blog yesterday about restaurant hygiene was broken with an announcement by the Minist...

Australian Right to Know Campaign on the move

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Irene Moss, former Ombudsman, head of the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption and a Federal Race Discrimination Commissioner has b...
Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Another Sydney council comes clean on kitchens

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The Sydney Morning Herald today in " Lid blown on hidden food safety breaches " reports about a second Sydney council (this time W...
Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Passing personal information overseas raises privacy concerns

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NZ Privacy Commissioner Marie Schroff, has expressed concern about the amount and type of information on New Zealanders being stored and pr...
Saturday, May 19, 2007

When did Rudd see the light on government transparency?

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Federal Labor Leader Kevin Rudd, perhaps sensibly acknowledged that his past record on openness and transparency when Director General of t...

UK private members bill gets Parliament off FOI hook

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The UK House of Commons voted on Friday to exclude the Houses of Parliament from the Freedom of Information Act (the Bill now goes to the H...
Thursday, May 17, 2007

Victorian Court rules legal professional privilege trumps all

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The Victorian Court of Appeal has found that legal professional privilege trumps any right to know in a case in which a woman who was subje...

More open book for Education

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Now this is more like it. Newly appointed Director General of the NSW Department of Education and Training as quoted in The Daily Telegraph ...

Federal ALP on board for FOI reform

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Federal Opposition Leader, Kevin Rudd agrees that Freedom of Information reform is needed. As a one time Director General of the Queensland...

"Right to know" monkey on PM's back

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The Prime Minister's advocacy of the public right to know, at least about what the state governments should tell us about the extent of ...

Should Parliament be exempt from FOI laws?

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In the UK, debate on a private member's bill that would exempt the Houses of Parliament from the Freedom of Information Act, will resume...
Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Open government laws that work better protection from liars

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According to today's papers , Julian Burnside QC, in speaking to the Future Summit in Melbourne brought the house down with his suggesti...
Monday, May 14, 2007

FOI issue turns into public health debate

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Food handling standards in restaurants, in NSW at least, is fast becoming a public health issue. Tim Elliott in the Sydney Morning Herald ...