Antinuclear

 Australia’s environment department is unlawfully withholding documents from the public

The Transparency Project Freedom of information Environment department illegally withholds thousands of FOI pages

More than 10,000 pages of documents have not been made public, including records on Adani and the Angus Taylor grasslands saga , Guardian,   Christopher Knaus @knausc  Wed 16 Oct 2019

Australia’s environment department is unlawfully withholding more than 10,000 pages of freedom of information documents from the public, including internal records on Adani and the Angus Taylor grasslands affair.

The department has failed to place documents on its FOI disclosure log for the past 10 months, meaning material it has released to individual applicants is not visible to the wider public.

The failings, first reported by the Mandarin, are a breach of FOI law, which compels government agencies to publish documents online within 10 working days of giving them to the initial applicant.

It means more than 10,000 pages have not been published on the log, including internal records on its decision to approve the controversial groundwater plan for the Adani coalmine and on Taylor’s interactions with an investigation into land-clearing by a company he and his family part-owned.

Guardian Australia understands the department’s conduct has been the subject of an official complaint to the information watchdog, the office of the Australian information commissioner (OAIC). The OAIC typically does not comment on ongoing investigations………

Peter Timmins, a lawyer and highly-regarded FOI expert, said it showed a broader problem with the federal government’s attitude toward FOI.

“It shows a broader problem really about the state of FOI if we have agencies that can disregard quite clear obligations to make documents released publicly available on their disclosure log,” Timmins said. “The broader problem is that I think without appropriate leadership – and that really is at the highest level of government – about the importance of transparency and integrity, we see these breaches occur.”…….. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/oct/16/environment-department-illegally-withholding-thousands-of-foi-pages

October 24, 2019 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, civil liberties, politics, secrets and lies