Australia’s freedom of information system is heading for a “train smash” within two years because the office that reviews government decisions to withhold or redact information will soon be swamped by a massive workload, the independent senator Rex Patrick has warned.
The FOI system, a crucial limb of government accountability, relies heavily on the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, an independent umpire that reviews government decisions and hears complaints.
The OAIC has repeatedly warned it will struggle to meet its workload without better resourcing. Dozens of reviews are languishing with the OAIC for more than two years, a delay that can render FOI documents out-of-date and useless by the time they are released.
New modelling, released to Patrick through responses to questions on notice, shows the problem is going to get considerably worse.
The OAIC forecasts it will receive 1,622 request for reviews in 2022-23, up from 1,066 last financial year.
The forecasts show the OAIC, with current resourcing, will have the capacity to complete only 829 reviews a year in the foreseeable future. That would leave it finalising roughly half the reviews it is receiving by 2022-23.
Patrick said the resulting backlog would result in a “train smash” in the FOI system.
The loss of an efficient and timely appeals mechanism would allow government departments to deny documents on spurious grounds, knowing challenges would be likely to take years, Patrick said.
“The government is secretly undermining the entire FOI regime,” he said. “It tacitly approves, and perhaps even encourages, officials taking a cavalier approach to denying access to information, which then overloads an underfunded information commissioner.”
Such delays translate into a real loss of transparency on crucial issues.
Stefania Maurizi, an Italian investigative journalist, has spent more than two years waiting for the OAIC to make a decision on the government’s decision to heavily redact documents related to its treatment of Julian Assange and involvement in his extradition. Maurizi said the “paralysis” in Australia’s FOI system was worse than in any other country she had dealt with.
Her experience is not uncommon.
Separate data provided to Patrick shows that the OAIC currently has on its books 37 review applications lodged by journalists or politicians that have taken more than two years to process.
The senator said the overloading of the regulator was part of a broader trend toward secrecy in Australia.
“We’ve got a government that has expanded cabinet to broaden secrecy claims over all significant decisions, ignored the funding needs of the auditor general, reducing his performance audit capacity from 48 per annum to under 40, feigned interest in a real Icac and used the AFP to intimidate the media in its oversight role,” he said.
“Now it’s seeking to shut down citizen-initiated oversight by hamstringing the information commissioner in her ability to review what are often wild FOI exemption claims by officials.”
A spokesman for the OAIC said an effective and efficient FOI system was “fundamentally in the public interest”.
“While we have increased our efficiency and output within existing resourcing, there does remain a gap between the volume of IC review applications and the number which we can finalise in a timely way,” the spokesman said. “We will continue to look for opportunities to further increase our efficiency, and to promote the benefits of the proactive release of government-held information where appropriate.
“We remain committed to finalising all IC reviews as quickly as possible. The volume of applications we receive means that meeting our KPI of completing 80% of IC reviews within 12 months continues to be challenged.”