Government agencies have vast resources of information, and Web 2.0 applications have made that information much more valuable, writes Nicholas Gruen.
We’re all in favour of openness – at least, as Sir Humphrey might say, “in principle” – but of course it means different things to different people.
The original US Freedom of Information Act was passed in 1966 in the US, although it took until 1982 for something similar to find its way into Australian law. But placing the act in its historical context illustrates how FOI was seen as a matter of essential civil rights.
The Freedom of Information Bill introduced to Federal Parliament last year bore the marks of a new sensibility. Freedom of information, it tells us, is there not just to defend people’s civil right to information – particularly information about them.
It extends the objectives of the old FOI act. FOI now seeks “to promote Australia’s representative democracy”. And this is offered not simply as an ethical or constitutional value.
The new FOI bill proposes to increase “public participation in Government processes, with a view to promoting better-informed decisionmaking”.
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