Freedom of Information - Act must be strengthened, not weakened

ACCESS to comprehensive and accurate information is a prerequisite for effective decision making and is the lubricant of good governance.

Access to nearly all public information is a prerequisite for assessing government policy or performance. This access is one of the core values that sustains representative democracy and it is an essential tool for keeping governments honest. These were the ambitions of those who enacted the Freedom of Information Act in 1997 but those ideals have yet to be realised.

The act was greatly reduced five years ago, doing enormous damage to our right to public information. It is as if access to the decisions taken on our behalf, to the workings of bodies set up to serve this society and the process involved in formulating public policy is a privilege, not a right.