More open government

Press, 27 August 1980, Page 20

More open government

By

OLIVER RIDDELL

in Wellington

"I am satisfied that it is possible to go much further in the direction of open gov. ernment without serious prejudice, and indeed with advantage, to the effective conduct of government business,” believes the Ombudsman (Mr George Laking). His views carry some weight, and not just because he is the Ombudsman dealing with complaints by the public against the Public. Service. .He was a career public servant himself, rising to be Secretary of For-< eign Affairs. He recently told , a seminar on the Accountability of the Executive, run by the Institute for Public Administration, how he saw the drive for more open government. The main argument advanced .in support of the right of freer access to official information is that information which is accumulated by a government for public purposes is public information and not the exclusive property of the government. That is a debatable point; the issue may be approached in a less contentious manner. Would the process of government be impeded or assisted by freeing the flow of official information? Mr Laking believes the freer flow of information would be helpful to the efficient and effective conduct of government. Two major investigations carried out by Ombudsmen in recent years are good

examples — th e investigation into the Security Intelligence Service and the investigation into certain aspects of the import licensing system. ' % Those enquiries resulted in much information previously , unavailable to the public • being placed on the public record, without any discernible disadvantage (and indeed some benefit) to the conduct of government business. Mr Laking looked at the situations in Sweden, the United States, Canada and Australia. Sweden occupies a special position in that it has had a ’legislative commitment stringently maintained for a very long time — first embodied in the Freedom of the Press Act which formed part of its 1766 Constitution. The barriers to the’ adoption of such a system in New Zealand are, Mr Laking considers, more psychological and administrative than constitutional. The administrative problems would be serious. In a small country like New Zealand, with its very high degree of government involvement, there are practical limits to the extent to which there Will be any benefit from diverting government agencies from their main tasks in order to satisfy the requirements of supervisory agencies. In the United States, once public officials have overcome their initial resistance to the notion, of giving free

access to information, they seem to find the process less and less painful, even enjoyable and helpful. Increasingly they become accustomed to releasing information in advance or in excess of legal requirement. Both Australia and Canada have now introduced legislation at the federal level to provide for freer access to official information, having presumably come to the conclusion that the enactment of such legislation would be a positive contribution: to the effective conduct of government. Mr Laking says it 'is interesting and significant that in all four countries governments have been able to persuade themselves that the provision of freer access to information is not inimical to the effective and efficient conduct of government and that a right of access should be given legislative endorsement. That seems an appropriate *. starting point for New Zea’) land, but he warns against relying too much on analogies with systems operating in other countries. Any New Zealand systems must meet local requirements. The enactment of legislation ’ which on its face encourages the release of information, .' but in practice contains a list of exclusions so farreaching as to be more restrictive than the existing situation; is to be avoided.