Canberra Liberals Leader Elizabeth Lee will formally present the Freedom of Information Amendment Bill 2022 in the Legislative Assembly on Wednesday.

Ms Lee tabled an exposure draft of the Bill earlier in the year to improve transparency by amending the Freedom of Information Act 2016 to create a proactive disclosure provision for government to publicly release records within 30 business days after Cabinet consideration.

• Liberals call for Labor and Greens to ‘walk the walk’ on transparency (7 July)
• Liberals call for greater ACT Government transparency (27 May)

“The guiding principle of the bill is to encourage better governance and enhance public confidence in government through transparency,” Ms Lee said.

“Without the checks and balances provided by an upper house in the ACT, we need more open government, not less.

“A culture of secrecy fostered by this Labor-Greens government that has been in power for 21 years and routinely hides their failures from the public by refusing Freedom of Information requests on the grounds they contain Cabinet material.

“Just last week, we saw a damning report handed down by the Auditor-General on the procurement and contracting activities for the Acton Waterfront Project that among many problems highlighted the lack of information publicly available on the project.

“This comes on the back of the recent Campbell Primary Modernisation Project that was also slammed by the Auditor General for a lack of probity, and the murky CIT contracts that saw almost $9 million paid to one contractor.”

The bill also clearly describes exemptions, where public release of information would reasonably be expected to endanger a person’s life of physical safety, limit a person’s rights, prejudice an ongoing criminal investigation, or disclose information contrary to the public interest.

“This same policy has been operating in New Zealand since 2018, which is a unicameral jurisdiction like our own, and the Queensland Labor government recently agreed to this measure following a scathing integrity review,” Ms Lee said.

“If this Labor-Greens government has nothing to hide, and is serious about being transparent with Canberrans, they must support this bill,” Ms Lee concluded.

Read more:

• Liberals: ACT public service is not reporting serious issues (29 August)
• Canberra Liberals accuse Berry over Campbell procurement (5 April)
• Liberals call for audit of ACT Government procurements (1 March)
• Building tenderers urged to report suspicious procurement processes (23 February)

• Liberals have questions after CIT Estimates hearings (23 August)
• Integrity commission to review CIT contracts (23 June)
• Chris Steel will use ministerial powers to direct CIT (17 June)
• Elizabeth Lee: CIT internal review ‘rings alarm bells’ (17 June)
• CIT promises independent audit of multi-million Think Garden contract (15 June)
• CIT’s $9 million contracts a concern for taxpayers (7 June)