As usual, this government has passed a bill in a midnight sitting on or around Tuesday 2nd June, and the bill and vote took very little time as it was rushed through much like the legislation that gave Beattie and Bligh the power to amalgamate councils.
This time it was the new promised, and I have to say much lauded as giving us the most transparent government in the country, freedom of information act in Queensland that was given the bums rush at a late night sitting where it was put up and voted through in a very short time.
Ok, so they did somewhat revamp the act but is it going to make information more easily accessible or is it just to be seen as making changes toward making information seem more accessible.
One of the major sticking points was in a section of the Act ; Right to Information Act, section 54- which seems to be designed to neutralise the effect of releasing any information they have to release under the application for FOI by allowing the government to release that same information publicly 24 hours after it has been released to the applicant.
It seems, on the surface, to be reasonable doesn't it.
Think about how much this government has spent on SPIN, that is deliberately creating positive publicity for the purpose of making the government's approval from the public higher.
Putting two and two together yet?
In real terms it means that the government can release the information you request and pay a lot for to the public one day after you get it and publish it in a way that can dilute the effectiveness of the applicant releasing it and in real terms long before the applicant has even been able to read and understand it thoroughly anyway.
The purpose for this seems to be to offset the majority of applications which are from journalists and the opposition who will either publish it in the case of the Journalists or use it to ambush a government minister in question time.
What is more appalling is that the relevant ministers are given detailed briefings about media and opposition applications (FOI Requests) giving them time ( FOI requests are not usually actioned for a month and can be dragged out by being referred from department to department) to prepare a response, create a spin campaign or even rebut the issue before it becomes public knowledge.
This is obviously about making FOI ineffectual and more expensive and a deliberate attempt to try to make it seem to be a worthless pursuit (even more than it is already because the typical response from FOI requests is that there is no document found that is within the scope of your application)
The opposition put up an admirable case for change or removal of the section of the act and even requested that FOI requests have a capped cost for the applicant at a maximum of $1000, but even that was rejected by Bligh.
Beattie and now Bligh have indeed been twisting the knife, cutting out the heart of the community re: any public criticism or public opposition even to the point of wanting the public to only hear their sanitised version of anything.
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2 comments:
It is really hard to get information from any authority, Federal, State or even Councils and you're right they use the "no document was found " excuse or drag it out until they don't have to give it to you or even just change the name of the documents so you don't know what the hell to ask for.
The clandestine way that Bligh and her predecessor have run this state (into the ground) leaves a lot to be desired and if the new legislation is "transparency" they may as well just shred everything.
Governments are getting worse with every election.
This government has for over ten years been secretly eroding the communities ability to know what is going on in government and using various methods to do it including the widespread use of Public Private Partnerships which hide all financials and dealings including the payments of huge finders fees, lobbying fees , directors fees and enormous bonuses behind the wall of the private entity.
The voters have been hoodwinked, to put it mildly, at the last election which was called early without doubt to keep the poor fiscal performance of this government out of the voters minds.
Worse those unions who rallied outside LNP functions, ardently politicised workplace factors and aggressively rebuked the LNP policy with assumptions and innuendo and have capitulated in a gutless heap over the assets sales are now whinging about cuts.
Suck it up union bully boys you got what you wanted, hope it tastes like shit!!
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