12 February 2009

If you don't like our crappy information you shan't have any at all

| johnboy
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The Canberra Times has word on threats by a seemingly increasingly irate Jon Stanhope to stop giving briefings to the Liberals if they’re going to do underhanded things like quote just how vague and breezy the briefings are.

But maybe they won’t need the briefings for long. Another story in the CT explains that the Greens have passed into law the Liberal vision for new Freedom of Information laws. It will get harder to hide things under the new regime.

In fact there’s been quite a lot of cooperation between the Greens and Liberals this week. So much so that one has to wonder if yesterday’s theatrics was more about giving the Greens cover from the left, rather than genuine outrage.

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I would imagine most Green supporters would assess the issue at hand rather than just take umbrage at collaboration with the Liberals. It is good to see the Greens taking a stance on principle rather than just always siding with the ALP. This is democracy in action.

A comment about Freedom of Information. It is a worthy goal to open up access through legislation and restricting what can be exempted under FOI, however the system is only as good as the people who are administering it. Anyone who has ever worked in the public service knows that laid down Codes of Conduct or access to information laws mean very little when compared with the desire to whitewash major misdemeanours, mismanagement and fraudulent activity within the public service. I suspect the State service is much the same.

By cover from the left I mean that with all this frantic collaboration with the Liberals some Green supporters might be getting upset if not for a carefully engineered spat about access.

I like the reference to the Liberals “giving cover from the left”. I don’t think a Labor government has ever seen anything from the Liberals originating from the left before! Is it an indication of the positioning of ACT Liberals, or ACT Labor or both???

There’s something felicitous about the home of Governance in Australia having such poor quality representation.

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