Governments are becoming increasingly secretive. Here’s how they can be made to be more transparent

Transparency is vital for our democratic government system.

It promotes good government, stimulating those in power in better practice. Even when what is revealed is quite revolting, transparency means that these transgressions are known and responsibility can follow.

Transparency is particularly important for people who do not have access to the government, who are not “in the room” or “at the table”, whether directly or through lobbyists or other connections.

But recent data reveal that government’s transparency in Australia is decreasing. Given the link between transparency and a well functional democracy, this is deeply worrying.

The Albanian government’s compliance rate with the Senate orders for documents has been the lowest of all government since 2016, and the second breast of any government since 1993. Disclosure under the laws on freedom of information has dropped dramatically over the past decade.

The problem is not a lack of solutions, but that governments seem to be perpetually willing to open up.

How should transparency work?

In Australia, there is a complex system of institutions and laws that ensure the responsibility of the government and transparency.

Apart from the blunt instrument of electoral responsibility through the ballot boxes, Parliament, and in particular the Senate with non -governmental predominance, plays a key role in responsibility and transparency.

The transparency work of the Senate is supplemented by a certain number of regimes, heads of their freedom of information. Under freedom of information, public members can request specific information from the ministries and government agencies, and this is supported by a “champion of information”, the office of the Australian Information Commissioner.

To function properly, these plans and regimes need support, cooperation and membership (literally in the form of funding) of the government. This has sometimes been less than coming, which can hinder their operation in different ways.

There are also several reasons why a government could refuse to publicly disclose what it does. Former High Court chief judge Harry Gibbs said that “the government at a high level cannot work without a certain degree of secret”.

But the limits and exceptions to transparency regimes are controversial. Should there be an exception? A particular document is in the exception?

The government is holding on to assert if a document falls into an exception, because it is those who know which documents are. This gives birth to cynicism that these exceptions can be and are mistreated.

Extracting documents buried

This cynicism can be justified, because two recent reports of the Center for Public Integrity show that successive governments lack a real commitment to transparency.

The first report concerned the Senate orders for the production of documents and the frequency to which the government is in accordance with them.

One of the most powerful tools in the Senate to keep the executive to account is its ability to order the production of government documents.

But governments have a long history of avoiding respect for the orders of the Senate. They completely refuse to respond, either offer general allegations of “public interest immunity” on sensitive documents, such as those relating to national security, cabinet, federal relations or the police.

Although the Senate can sanction the ministers who refuse to comply with his orders, for example by suspended from the Chamber, he historically did not do in response to the carelessness of the government.

This means that we do not know if requests for public interest immunity are made on valid documents, and there is currently no mechanism to discover.

Recent data show that government compliance rates with Senate orders to produce documents increased from 92% in 1993-1996, to around 33% for the current Parliament.

It is a hollow that only the Abbott / Turnbull government in the 44th parliament has the ignoming record to beat in the past 30 years.

He is associated with the government increasingly claiming public interest immunity. The refusals of public interest immunity as a proportion of non-compliance were 61% compared to the 46th parliament, which increased to almost 68% on the first mandate of the Albanian government.

They have an average of approximately one claim per week under the Albanians, against approximately a complaint every three weeks under the Morrison government in the 46th parliament.

What about freedom of information?

The second report concerns the functioning of the Commonwealth Freedom of Information Regime (Faith).

The performance of the Albanian government on the delivery of transparency in this way is a mixed bag.

First, the good news: the office of the Australian Information Commissioner is better resources, the first instance processing times have improved, and more the opinions received by the OAIC are finalized.

But applause stop there.

While the proportion of entirely granted requests was 59% in 2011-2012, by 2023-2024, it had fallen at only 25%.

During the same period, the refusals squarely went through ball from 12% to 23%.

The precipitous decline in the “difference in refusal” (the difference between the proportion of requests granted in full and those refused) is alarming.

In addition, it is difficult to have confidence in the accuracy of these refusals. In 2023-2024, almost half of the initial decisions proved to be wrong after an internal examination.

Treatment times are also the source of a significant concern. The average processing time for the magazines of the Australian Information Commissioner increased from 6 months in 2016-2017 to 15.5 months in 2023-24.

Disorder

Of course, figures are not a complete story. But they cannot be refused either, and they tell an overwhelming story for the government.

So how could they be discussed?

The Senate should adopt an independent legal arbiter to supervise complaints for immunity of public interest. This would discourage secrecy by providing an independent examination mechanism to Parliament in order to verify the government’s immunity complaints.

In order for this reform to work, the Senate should not hesitate to bend its application muscles. The government should know that the lack of transparency has consequences.

In response to the freedom of information crisis, there are a number of reforms that could improve transparency. These cover:

• Legislative changes such as the accuracy that existing requests are not invalidated with a change in the title of minister or portfolio
• higher resources to support the training of information agents and continuous monitoring
• and growing parliamentary surveillance of the regime.

Transparency is not an elite concern, but one of those who are not otherwise in the room. It is the concern of peoples. However, governments have incentives to maintain the status quo.

So, even if the work spoke a great game of transparency in the opposition, they did little to the government. We must demand them do it.

This article is republished from the conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.