Disclosure of Cabinet documents in Australia
5 Jun, 2012‘The Australian’ has reported on Monday that the South Australian Labor government is failing in its 2010 election promise, to make cabinet-in-confidence documents available after 10 years. The present government has been criticised by the newspaper for not making the information available suo-motu to the public because of which the media outlets have had to apply under ‘Freedom of Information’ regulations for documents that should now be publicly available.
The document sought by ‘The Australian’ related to a $30,000 grant towards a trust for British child migrants and a plaque; the government's decision to close its Beijing trade office etc. ‘The Australian’ had applied for access to 36 documents in January out of which three were made available only last week, with one refused.
This news item is indicative of the working of the RTI Act in the developed nations.