The Review of the Freedom of Information Act 1991 has resulted in a Right to Information Act which will replace the Freedom of Information Act on its commencment in July 2010. For detail about the Right to Inforamtion Act 2009 and its implementation please refer to the Projects Page of the Office of the Secretary.
The Act proceeded through Parliament after being amended based on the feedback received when The Attorney-General, Lara Giddings, released a draft of the Right to Information Bill 2009 for comment.
The Bill had been developed following extensive consultation with FOI users in Government, the media and the community, and has been examined by a panel of experts including the Ombudsman, Mr Simon Allston, and Queensland review author, Dr David Solomon AM.
The Bill proposed to:
• replace the current Act with a Right to Information Act;
• mandate greater proactive release of information by the Government;
• spell out the factors to be considered when applying the overarching public interest test;
• create clear timelines for processing applications, if the information is not readily available; and
• increase the powers of the Ombudsman for external review and monitoring.
These proposals are aimed at improving transparency in the Governments operations and decision making process through better access to information for all Tasmanians.
As part of the review of the Freedom of Information Act 1991 (FOI Act), provisions regarding personal information were considered.
The Personal Information Protection Act 2004 (PIP Act) currently regulates the collection, maintenance, use and disclosure of personal information relating to individuals. At the time of its development consideration was given as to whether the Act should include the right to access and amend personal data. It was concluded at the time that the FOI Act appropriately dealt with the matter and that the implementation of the PIP Act would be easier without this added complexity.
The Tasmanian FOI Act review reconsidered this position and noted that both the recent Queensland and NSW FOI Act reviews had concluded that moving the administration of access and amendment of personal data to separate specific legislation, such as the PIP Act, aided the accessing of general government records. The review also found that in Tasmania, most state service agencies and particularly those holding most personal information had already implemented detailed access policies under the PIP Act regime, which has resulted in a marked reduction in the use of the FOI Act for personal information.
The FOI Act review team subsequently recommended that the Personal Information Protection Act 2004 be amended to provide for a right to access and amend personal records as currently provided for in the FOI Act 1991. The draft Personal Information Protection Amendment Bill 2009 was developed to implement this recommendation, and was passed by Parliament in late 2009. The Amendments will take effect on the commencement of the Right to Information Act 2009.
The Personal Information Protection Amendment Act 2009 and the Personal Information Protection Act 2004 can be viewed at Tasmanian Legislation Online www.thelaw.tas.gov.au
Directions Paper
The Directions Paper: Strengthening trust in Government… everyones right to know was developed following an earlier period of consultation in order to promote discussion in the community about the right to know and about a new direction for sharing information with the Tasmanian community. The period for comment ended on 8 May 2009, but a copy of the Paper may still be viewed for your interest. The Directions Paper may be accessed using the link below:
Strengthening trust in Government... everyone's right to know. [1.3 mb | 76 pages]
The responses to this Paper were considered in detail and contributed to the development of the draft Right to Information Bill which is now available for comment (see above).
An overview of the Directions Paper as presented to the Environmental Defenders Office Tasmania conference, "Information - a right or a privilege?" on 6 April 2009, is available below.
Overview of the Directions Paper "Strengthening trust in Government... everyone's right to know" [189 kb | 16 pages]
A significant part of preparing this paper was to examine the international experience. The review team prepared a table of international legislation and in preparing our recommendation we examined the system we were building by comparing it with the information we gathered for the table. With over 70 countries now having Freedom of Information laws this table is in itself a significant document and was not included in the Directions Paper for reasons of practicality.
Table of Global Comparison of FoI Laws [ | 78 pages]
The new Right to Information Act 2009 proposed by the Directions Paper draws heavily on the work done in recent times in Queensland and New South Wales.
Links to the reports from these states are available from:
The process followed by the review team to develop this Directions Paper included examination of submissions received. This first call for submissions opened in November 2008 for 12 weeks. All submissions were considered in detail as part of the preparation of the Directions Paper. However, the Project Manager decided that three submissions contained information which was of a nature that it was not appropriate to publish on this website.
Submissions are available here
On 10 December 2008 a group of stakeholders came together to assist us in identifying some of the strengths and areas for change in Tasmania's Freedom of Information Act and processes. The stakeholders were aided by Dr David Solomon and Mr Rick Snell, two of Australia's leading experts in Freedom of Information.
The report of the forum has been treated as one submission to the Review and a copy of the report is available below.
Issues Identification Forum Report [105.7 kb | 13 pages]
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