This paper considers the best legal arragements to ensure a balance between the need to protect some Commonwealth information and the need to maintain an open and accountable government through providing appropriate access to information. The ALRC has identified and considered 507 secrecy provisions scattered across 175 pieces of legislation, including 358 distinct secrecy offences...

In light of freedom of information laws and other modern moves towards greater openness and accountability on the one hand, and the current international security environment on the other, are secrecy laws still relevant and necessary? Is a statutory duty on Commonwealth officers not to disclose information necessary or desirable? Are general law obligations sufficient...

It is now a little over ten years since the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) and the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (now the Australian Human Rights Commission) released the landmark report Seen and Heard: Priority for Children in the Legal Process(ALRC 84, 1997). Seen and Heard represented the culmination of a major two-year...

Among its key recommendations, this report calls for: • Simplification and streamlining: the Privacy Act and related laws and regulations are highly detailed and complex, making it difficult for businesses to understand their obligations and for individuals to know their rights. A basic restructuring of the Act is required, focused on high-level principles of general...

This report recommends 45 changes to the handling of claims of client legal privilege over material sought by federal investigatory bodies and royal commissions of inquiry. The inquiry found general support for maintaining privilege as a fundamental right of clients, which only should be abrogated or modified in exceptional circumstances. However, privilege must be balanced...