A Senate inquiry will examine the backlog of Freedom of Information requests in the wake of the resignation of the FOI Commissioner Leo Hardiman earlier this month.
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The inquiry, which was secured by the Greens and supported by Senate crossbenchers and the Coalition, will look into the effects of Mr Hardiman's resignation, as well as the delays and resourcing of the reviews of FOI appeals.
It will also look at creating a statutory timeframe for completing reviews, with the committee scheduled to report back in December.
It comes as Mr Hardiman called its quits within 12 months into a five-year position, citing a lack of power to reform the backlogged system he was hired to fix.
The commissioners' resignation follows years of budget cuts resulting in a backlog of thousands of FOI reviews stretching back more than five years.
In May 2022, about half of requests had been with the office for more than 12 months.
Greens Senator David Shoebridge said the inquiry would be "an important opportunity" to shed some light on the FOI system and how to fix it.
"Instead of Freedom of Information laws we have Freedom from Information, which means whether you're a journalist or a citizen, it's next to impossible to hold those in power to account," Senator Shoebridge said.
"We're looking forward to hearing from all those users of the FOI system who for years have been banging their heads against this wall."
Mr Hardiman was appointed to the role in April last year, after the position sat vacant since 2015 when Abbott government reduced the size of the commission.
Senator Shoebridge said the Commissioner's appointment was intended to be a "turning point" in the scheme but "that too has failed".
"Anyone who has been near the FOI system will tell you it's broken, responses are glacial, costs are obscenely high and too often no documents are released despite compelling public interest," he said.
"The broken state of FOI laws and the impossible backlog aren't an accident, they were intentionally created by a Coalition government that was committed to secrecy and hiding ministers from accountability."
