Wither open government?
A few days ago I couldn't help but marvel at the hypocrisy of Mark Vaile who stated that holding a high office in Australia carried a "great expectation of total transparency". His statement was of course right in principle, but how sincere is the belief of the Howard government in transparent and open government?
The Westminster system is based on the principle of the government accountable to parliament and the parliament accountable to the people. Party discipline has had an impact on that principle, but not on the basic notion that the government must be accountable, transparent and open. Look at it from the starting point of democracy - if democracy is about people making a choice by casting their vote, they must have adequate information to make it an informed choice, otherwise there's little point in having a choice in the first place.
Howard government has not been accountable, transparent and open. Yesterday, Kevin Rudd moved to censure the government for failing to disclose how much (tax-payer) money the government intends to spend on "climate change" advertising campaign (no doubt designed to explain away the government's lack of action). The failure to disclose the spending to parliament is consistent with past conduct of the Howard government - it failed to disclose such information when requested by a Senate Committee. Non-disclosure to parliament certainly demonstrates contempt for the Westminster principles of government accountability, however there are other means of gaining information that exist, or are supposed to.
One of the great modern inventions, theoretically designed to improve openness and transparency in government are the Freedom of Information Acts, which exist at both the State and Federal levels. Less than a month ago, Howard criticised the apparent lack of transparency of the Victorian government, citing an example where a newspaper had to spend some $40,000 in legal costs in an attempt to obtain access to certain government school documents under FOI. Yep, that's bad.
But what the Howard government does itself is much worse. Yesterday, it was revealed that the government attempted to charge a union almost half a million dollars and said it would take 12 years to produce less than 400 documents under FOI.
The National Tertiary Education Union sought documents relating to industrial changes in universities which forced the universities to put all its staff on AWAs, with some $450 million in funding tied to compliance with this government directive (anyone still think that the government intends for employers or employees have a choice over AWAs?)
The Government wanted $455,000 to fulfil the request and said that it would take more than 12 years to locate and peruse the 347 relevant files. Now either the government has a really, really bad filing system or transparency and accountability are not on their agenda.
A SMH journalist didn't have much more luck with trying to obtain a copy of "market research" the government did into its workplace advertising, on which the government spent almost 2 million dollars of tax payer money. One might think that if our money is being used, we might have the right to know what's in the report. Not so, according to the Howard government. The journalist was told that he could have the report, but only after the election for "public interest" reasons. That's right, it is in public interest for the public to be kept in the dark about what is being done with their money.
The trend towards closed government was highlighted in a 2004 speech by Jack Herman of the Australian Press Council. Herman noted that the Howard government was becoming increasingly more secretive and obstructionist in its approach to FOI applications, especially on controversial matters.
The fees quoted for non-personal FOI applications had increased more than three-fold between 1998 and 2001, with a quoted fee of over $600,000 on one occasion. Some departments had an average asking price of more than $10,000 per application.
When this practice is viewed in light of the fact that it is applied only to the more controversial applications, lengthy delays in processing the applications (although the 12 years quoted for the NTEU must be a record!) and the increasing use of "conclusive certificates" to bar access to documents altogether, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the government has been doing its best to avoid transparency and accountability.
And without an accountable and open government, can there be a true democracy?
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