• Mike Steketee

01 February 2010Can Labor change a culture of secrecy, asks Mike Steketee in The Australian

WHEN DOES Penny Wong sleep? According to her Climate Change Department, there are 210,507 documents to help inform or brief her on the government's emissions trading scheme. Perhaps she hasn't read them all. Either way, voters are entitled to ask whether they are getting value for money from the bureaucracy's work on a scheme they mostly still don't understand and which the government cannot get through parliament.

The story so far: last March then special minister of state John Faulkner released draft legislation for a wholesale overhaul of freedom of information legislation. The aim, he said, was to introduce a culture of openness into the government and the public service. Many of the existing exemptions for the release of information are abolished under the legislation.

To show he meant it, Faulkner told heads of department to instruct officials handling FOI requests that, even before the legislation came into force, they should "embrace a disposition towards disclosure". Faulkner wanted the new act in force by the start of this year but Kevin Rudd called him up for higher duties as Defence Minister. Under his successor, Joe Ludwig, the legislation finally was introduced into the lower house on the last sitting day last year...

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