05 November 2007

Freedom of information in Australia?

... or should that be freedom from information in Australia?

More than 500 separate legal provisions in 335 different state and federal acts of Parliament are denying Australians access to a vast amount of information they should be able to see, a major new report says.

The Right to Know Coalition today released an audit on the state of free speech, which its authors say provides a damning picture of "how free speech and media freedom are being whittled away".


Now, it should be noted that the "Coalition" is a group of media interests, but nevertheless this is firm evidence of something many of us have probably suspected for some time - in fact, Background Briefing on ABC Radio National did a piece some years ago on "commercial in confidence" which basically meant that the government used that excuse to not be accountable to taxpayers and the electorate.

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