The Journalist's Guide to Media Law - Chapter 9 - Keeping Secrets - FOI Legislation

Journalists may be able to bypass issues related to disobedience contempt and confidentiality if they have the time and resources to lordge a Freedom of Information (FOI) request for government information. First introduced by Federal government in 1982 and in 2006 applied to all states and territories.

In QLD the FOI act is, Freedom of Information Act 2009.

FOI is the principle that there is a strong public interest in the administrative decisions of governments. The theory is that government documents regarding an individual should be released for free to that person, while other documents are available for a fee.

The idea behind the FOI system is that government departments become transparent by allowing the release of documents. However there are several government organisations that are exempt from the act for fear of leaking documents that could effect or cause damage to Australia's security or defence interests. Some organisations that are exempt include ASIS, ASIO, the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS), the Office of National Assessments and some Defence sectors.

Problems with FOR

The Australian Press Council identified five key shortcoming or failures of FOI legislation:

• Many requests are obstructed on the grounds they are unreasonably divert an agency's resources. 
• Time delays discouraged FOI requests.
• Costs of filing applications were prohibitive. 
• Too many exemptions greatly reduced the amount of information available. 
• Arbitrary decisions by FOI officers on classification of documents often hindered requests.