This report finds Australia's freedom of information (FOI) system is dysfunctional, making it very difficult for Australians to get information out of government. It suggests that proposed restrictions on the public’s right to information defy the Robodebt Royal Commission and the Australian Government’s promise of transparency. It concludes that government secrecy is the cause of the problems in the FOI system, not the applicants.

The report notes that changes proposed in the Australian Government’s Freedom of Information Amendment Bill 2025 would exacerbate problems in the FOI system:

• the fee for access would raise less than $500,000, against a scheme that cost $86 million last year.
• the Robodebt Royal Commission recommended making cabinet documents subject to freedom of information requests. The government’s changes would instead make it even harder to access cabinet-related documents.
• the power to refuse a request that would take more than 40 hours to process means the less efficient an agency is, the more it could keep secret.  

Key findings

• Fewer FOI decisions are being made than in earlier years: 21,000 last year down from 34,000 in 2017.
• 21% of 2023–24 FOI requests were granted in full compared to 81% in 2006–07 (the last year of the Howard government).
• In 2023–24 it took 51 hours, on average, to determine one FOI request, up from 13 hours in 2006–07.
• If the Albanese Government achieved the Howard Government’s cost-per-FOI-request ratio, taxpayers would save $61 million per year.