Victorians need to have a greater awareness of their right to ask questions of local councils, state government and statutory bodies like Victoria Police, health services, utilities like water and power suppliers, says the Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner (OVIC).
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Information Commissioner Sven Bluemmel says it's crucial the general public understand their right to access information, and demand answers in a timely and clear manner.
OVIC explains how Freedom of Information and privacy laws operate in Victoria, and how important it is for agencies to change their behaviour to be open and transparent 'by design through proactive and informal release of information'.
Freedom of Information, or FOI, requests are legislated through the Freedom of Information Act 1982, and give citizens the right to request access to government-held information, including information they hold about citizens or about government policies and decisions.
However, a culture of obfuscation has arisen, where even basic requests are denied or delayed through the claimed use of legal parameters, staffing shortages, time constraints or other excuses.
Commissioner Bluemmel told The Courier OVIC is determined to ensure access to documents under the FOI Act is given freely and not hindered by bodies attempting to defer the release of information.
"I remind agencies that resourcing FOI functions is not optional," Commissioner Bluemmel said.
"We have legislation passed by the State Parliament that says that the agencies have obligations under the FOI Act. If you have those obligations, you need to have the capability to discharge them. That's one thing that I remind agencies of constantly.
"We also encourage agencies to change how they respond to a request in the first place, so rather than immediately upon receiving a request going into an administrative, search mode, and potentially secrecy mode, which is very concerning. What we want the agencies to do is to look at it with an open mind, and if there's any ambiguity, or any possibility this might strain the resources genuinely, to get onto the phone with the applicants. Don't have this legal and technical volley of correspondence."
Commissioner Bluemmel says FOI officers need to assist people requesting information by explaining how a query may be too broad or require too much staff time - but that is no excuse for not disclosing material simply because its uncomfortable or problematic for the body.
"(We suggest the officer) get on the phone and say, 'Look, you've asked for it in these terms, what you may not realise is that those terms are likely to catch 100,archives boxes of documents, can we focus in on what you're really after?'"
"Have that discussion, and then you give yourself a chance of having a win-win situation, where the agency doesn't have to search through 100 boxes for stuff the person probably doesn't want anyway. The agency will quickly get to those documents the person genuinely wants.
"Now if those documents contain material the agency would rather not disclose because it's embarrassing, or it paints them in a bad light, my encouragement to the agency is to say: you have to do it. And if it's going to be embarrassing, you're much better off, in terms of your reputation, disclosing it quickly and openly."
Regional Australians have a close connection to their local government representatives and employees, often than urban dwellers, says Commissioner Bluemmel, so it is understandable there's a higher level of interest in obtaining information from those bodies. Thus there should be a suitable and effective level of staffing and resources to provide information to requests.
However the need to escalate a request to the formality of an FOI application should be be reconsidered, he says.
"Our focus at OVIC, and my personal focus as commissioner, within the Act that we've got, to improve government agency culture, to not just freedom of information requests, but to information release more generally," he says.
"So there are three ways that we want to do that. One is to encourage agencies to proactively disclose information so that there's not even any need for an FOI request. We want agencies to do that more and more, which is a big change.
"The second thing: we want to do is that when someone does request documents, we encourage agencies not to say, 'Well, you have to go through FOI in the first instance'. If someone makes an application for documents, by phone, in person, by letter, by email, I want the agencies to say 'Why can't we just give it out?' Don't even make the person go through an FOI application, unless it's something genuinely difficult to release without hurting someone else's rights, for example. But if it's not in that category, why not just give it out?
"The third category: if you then are saying, 'Look, this is a difficult one, and you will need to put in an FOI submission' is for the agency not to start from the premise of 'How can we find it exempt under the Act?' Start from the premise of 'How can we give as much out as possible?'
"Now, all of those things that are are hard things to do for us as the regulator. But that's what we've been doing, since we as an office have been created some four years ago, is to just relentlessly get that message out there to government agencies.
"When I see agencies engage in in technicalities, and particularly legal technicalities, to avoid giving access to a document or try and cleverly craft a response that, on a technicality takes certain documents out of scope for the application, because they don't want to give it out - all of those sorts of things to me are really undesirable outcomes. And they speak to an agency culture that is not in keeping with the object of the FOI. So I'm very much on the lookout for those when they come to me."
