{"id":24458,"date":"2023-12-08T06:12:31","date_gmt":"2023-12-08T06:12:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/?p=24458"},"modified":"2023-12-08T06:12:31","modified_gmt":"2023-12-08T06:12:31","slug":"its-time-to-uncook-foi-and-that-includes-those-overseeing-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2023\/12\/08\/its-time-to-uncook-foi-and-that-includes-those-overseeing-it\/","title":{"rendered":"IT\u2019S TIME TO UNCOOK FOI AND THAT INCLUDES THOSE OVERSEEING IT"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The Senate inquiry into the FOI system has reported today and recommends an urgent investigation into the deep dysfunction within the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner as identified by former FOI Commissioner Hardiman.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The report finds the FOI scheme is not fit for purpose and is creating serious barriers to access to information.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The 15 recommendations of the committee are designed to speed up access to information by:&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Substantially increasing resources to the FOI system to remove historic backlogs<\/li><li>Abolishing the pointless and time-wasting internal review process<\/li><li>Simplifying and streamlining the independent merits review process overseen by the FOI Commissioner, and&nbsp;<\/li><li>Allowing those seeking information to rapidly access the Administrative Appeals Tribunal to force the release of documents&nbsp;<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>These are realistic and achievable reforms that when adopted will provide essential accountability and transparency to the workings of the Commonwealth government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Greens Senator and Committee member David Shoebridge said:&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe degree of dysfunction the committee observed at the most senior levels of the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner was disturbing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe majority report calls for an urgent and independent review of the workplace behaviour matters within the OAIC that were raised by former FOI Commissioner Hardiman to address the dysfunction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt is hard to understand how the Attorney General thought it prudent to appoint two fresh statutory office holders to the OAIC without first addressing the extensive management and organisational failings we observed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThese are credible, achievable and important reforms that will help turn around the mess that is FOI in 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cSimplifying procedure, speeding up decisions and a serious investment in resources underpin these recommendations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI want to put on record the gratitude of my party, The Greens, for the courage and tenacity shown by Mr Hardiman in both his work as FOI Commissioner and his evidence to the Committee,\u201d Senator Shoebridge said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Senate inquiry into the FOI system has reported today and recommends an urgent investigation into the deep dysfunction within the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner as identified by former FOI Commissioner Hardiman.&nbsp; The report finds the FOI scheme is not fit for purpose and is creating serious barriers to access to information.&nbsp; The &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2023\/12\/08\/its-time-to-uncook-foi-and-that-includes-those-overseeing-it\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;IT\u2019S TIME TO UNCOOK FOI AND THAT INCLUDES THOSE OVERSEEING IT&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24458"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24458\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24459,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24458\/revisions\/24459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}