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25 February 2008

State Government changes to Freedom of Information Act

CORRA members are very concerned about the State Government’s changes to the Freedom of Information Act (FOI).  These are currently before the Parliament, as at 25/2/08.   

Apparently the Government plans to make it more difficult to make Freedom of Information Act requests by allowing Agencies to apply to have an applicant declared “vexatious”.  This will impose extra costs on individuals and groups such as CORRA who serve an important ‘watchdog’ role.  In addition, Agencies will have 75 days rather than 45 days to respond to requests. Our experience in the past is that even the most simple request always takes the maximum allowable time for a reply.

 Over the years CORRA has lodged a number of FOI requests and the outcome of some of these have eventually led to improvements in how the Colac Otway Shire Council operates.  These include a 1999 request regarding the waste collection contract and a 2001 request regarding the sale of Council land.

More recently, the Auditor General has identified Colac Otway Shire Council as being at “high risk” following a review of their financial reports.  In these circumstances it is even more important that groups such as CORRA can continue to use the Freedom of Information Act to access documents to help perform our ‘watchdog’ role.

 CORRA has written to the Victorian Attorney General and leaders of the Liberals, Greens, Nationals and DLP as each of these Parties have representation in the Victorian Legislative Council (Upper house).  Between them, the opposition Parties have a majority and can pass amendments in the Legislative Council.

 CORRA encourage other Ratepayer groups to consider writing to the Parliamentarians to urge them to amend this proposal so that community groups can continue to pursue Freedom of Information Requests without additional obstacles and delays.

 A fundamental aim stated in the current FOI act is that information should generally be available to the public unless it meets certain tests defined in the act. It appears that the current State Government has forgotten this important basis of the FOI act.

Yours sincerely

(Chris Harkin)

Secretary, CORRA

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