Freedom of information (FOI) is a crucial part of the beneficial information feedback loop between the government and the people. However, this submission to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee finds that Australia's FOI system is broken and cultural and legal changes are needed to fix it.

The submission summarises the results of the report Nothing to see here: Australia’s broken freedom of information system which found that:

• there were considerable delays with the FOI system, both in the processing of requests and the review of FOI complaints
• the cost to process FOI requests had risen dramatically over the last 15 years
• the FOI review process is clearly under-resourced
• the FOI system did not meet community expectations
• Government ministers and officials were delaying and obfuscating releasing FOI information.

This submission expands on this analysis by presenting the South Australian FOI review process as a model that could be adopted federally. The submission also makes a number of recommendations to improve FOI culture, resourcing and process.