Freedom of information system hampered by lack of cash and staff

Australia’s freedom of information system is being hampered by a lack of resources, the Senate has been told. 

The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner has pleaded for more funding to process freedom of information (FOI) requests, the tool used by journalists and members of the public to get official documents from the government. 

Angelene Falk, who holds the dual roles of information commissioner and privacy commissioner, told a Senate estimates hearing late Tuesday night that she had asked for more funding to process FOI requests.

“I certainly share the view that additional resources are needed for FOI and I have sought to try to enable that to the extent I can within my control,” Falk said. “I have put to the department the need for additional resources for the functions of the office and did so in the context of the recent budget.”

The May budget contained no extra money for the commission’s FOI work, but it did add $44.3 million over four years to support the work of a privacy commissioner, and $900,000 to respond to a review of the Privacy Act. 

“I requested funding across the privacy and FOI functions. And there was funding provided for the privacy functions of the office,” Falk said. 

When LNP Senator Paul Scarr pressed Falk on how much more FOI money she had requested, Labor’s Agriculture Minister Murray Watt, who was at the table to represent the attorney-general, intervened: “I think Ms Falk has been very helpful but you are getting into areas of advice, and the deliberations of ministers, and that kind of content is not normally provided in answers to questions at estimates.”

Falk was also asked about the resignation of the former FOI commissioner Leo Hardiman, who quit less than a year into the job complaining in a resignation letter of a lack of resources.

“There were always matters of the resourcing of the area, which was a matter that I had sought to pursue over a number of years,” Falk said. “And in relation to that, I had provided my full support to continue to pursue resources for the function. So commissioner Hardiman did not raise matters with me prior to his resignation, nor foreshadow his resignation.”

Hardiman’s resignation and the functioning of the FOI system will be the focus of a Senate inquiry.