Anyone on the supplicant side of the ACT's freedom of information laws will know the frustration of extracting information from an intractable and legalistic bureaucracy. The Freedom of Information Act 1989 contains within its very title a self-contradiction since it is legislation that serves for all practical purposes to guard against disclosure, not facilitate its free release.
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This is perhaps why Queensland chose to call its reformed legislation the Right to Information Act 2009, setting out from the start that the purpose is to release where possible, not withhold where possible. This is the "cultural shift" that the Greens' Shane Rattenbury is trying to achieve in Canberra in introducing new laws that favour disclosure, and set out in the Bill's objects that they should be "administered with a pro-disclosure bias".
Sadly, ACT Labor, with too much baggage and entrenched habits of non-disclosure in 15 years of incumbency, cannot see its way to support the reform. The government continues to preside over a system that sees freedom of information requests held up and batted back for months, with members of the public and the media made to jump through hoops with no prospect of success. Applicants are also hit with an insidious disincentive in the form of ludicrous bills for information, such as the $55,000-$65,000 estimate handed recently to Clubs ACT for access to documents about Aquis Entertainment's application for a casino licence.
Mr Rattenbury has negotiated himself to a standstill on his reforms, which were among almost 100 agreements under his power-sharing deal with Labor after the 2012 election, and remain one of the very few not implemented. His proposals were first rejected by Labor in late 2013, when Attorney-General Simon Corbell said they went well beyond the parliamentary agreement and further than the Queensland laws on which they were supposed to be based. Since then, Mr Rattenbury has negotiated with Labor and redrafted his Bill over and over again but to no avail, and on Thursday he will bring it on for debate, with the Liberals now its only hope for survival.
It would be a rare and unlikely moment indeed if Mr Rattenbury and the Liberals combine to carry the day, but it remains to be seen whether the Liberals will put the public interest ahead of their own. Certainly, they can afford to. The last 15 years of secrets are Labor's to hide with nothing to embarrass the Liberals, and any time in government for the conservative side of politics is surely likely to be short-lived enough to mitigate against the build-up of the worst of government decision-making.
Mr Corbell says the Bill goes further than the Queensland laws, especially on cabinet information. Mr Rattenbury's Bill does exclude information created for the purpose of consideration by cabinet from release, if its disclosure could "prejudice the collective responsibility of cabinet". And it keeps cabinet notes private also. But the Queensland legislation deals with cabinet documents in a rather more discursive fashion, allowing deliberations, consultations, opinions, advice and recommendations to be withheld if they are prepared for a deliberative process and if their disclosure would cause a public interest harm.
If it is this that has stuck in Mr Corbell's craw, he and his government are doing the public a serious disservice. As chief minister, Katy Gallagher made much of open government, promising "a fundamental shift in the openness and transparency". Patently, she and her successor have failed that promise.
