Information bill is up for discussion

Press, 12 February 1982, Page 12

Information bill is up for discussion

By

OLIVER RIDDELL

in Wellington

The Government has set up

a special parliamentary Select Committee to hear public sub- '' missions on the Official Information Bill. The bill was introduced to Parliament last year and is based on the recommendations of the Danks Committee. In anticipation of its eventual adoption by the Government, the State Services Commission is already conducting its own study of how the bill will change public service procedures. The Danks Committee, as the Committee on Official Information, chaired by Sir Alan Danks, has become known, pro-' duced a voluminous report. The bill follows recommendations and a draft bill set out in the committee’s supplementary re- > port.

Its intention is to make official information more freely available, to give individuals proper access to information relating to them, to protect official information to the extent required by the public interest and the need to preserve the privacy of the individual, to establish procedures for the achievement of these purposes, and to repeal the Official Secrets Act (1951). Part I of the bill sets out its purposes and criteria. There is not likely to be much argument over the desirability of these; the argument will be whether they are possible of attainment and whether the bill as it stands will permit them to be attained. The bill sets out the purposes as being, consistent with the principle of the executive Government’s responsibility to Parliament:—

•To increase progressively the availability of official information to the people of New Zealand in order to make possible their more effective participation in the making and. administration of laws and policies, and to promote the accountability of Ministers of the Crown and officials, and thereby to enhance respect for the law and to promote the good government of New Zealand.

• To provide proper access by individuals to official information relating to them.

• To protect official information to the extent consistent with the public interest and the preservation of privacy of the individual.

On the principle of availability, the bill states: “The question whether any official information is to be made available, where that question arises under this Act, shall be determined, except where the Act otherwise expressly requires, in accordance with the purposes of this Act and the principle that the information shall be made available unless there is good reason for withholding it.” While well-intentioned, that statement may seem rather to beg the issue, and critics of the bill have not been slow to note that “conclusive reasons” and “other reasons” for withholding information are detailed much more fully and specifically than the reasons for giving it.

So it is a sensible move for the bill to set up an Information Authority. This will define and review categories of official information with a

view to enlarging the categories to which access is given as a matter of right, and recommend the making of regulations prescribing categories to' which access is given as a matter of right and such conditions (if any) as it considers appropriate over giving access to any category. The Information Authority will also keep the workings of the act under review , and the manner in which access is being given to official information and the manner in whcih it is being supplied. But the authority is not the body to which any person can complain if refused access to official information. Specific complaints of this nature must go to the Ombudsman.

In effect, the bill replaces the Official Secrets Act, 1951, with a much wider and more open attitude towards official information. It does indeed represent a major step forward. It will not go far enough to satisfy many who want even more open information, and its operation may prove not to be as liberal as its purposes intend.

Submissions to the special Parliamentary Select Committee will no doubt dwell on these fears. But it is unreasonable to expect radical change. The changes proposed are broad and fundamental; the Government has no commitment to anything further and a revolutionary bill lifting nearly all restraints on official information need not have been expected.