Transparency report calls for Tasmanian information commissioner
Tasmania must overhaul its culture of government secrecy, with a major review calling for an Information Commissioner to improve transparency and accountability, a new report has found.
The Tasmanian government must transform a prevailing culture of non-disclosure, a major transparency review has found, with report authors suggesting an Information Commissioner be established to improve administrative accountability and openness in the state.
The independent probe of Tasmania’s Right to Information framework, conducted by Professor Tim McCormack and Adjunct Associate Professor Rick Snell, also identified concerns that senior bureaucrats were routinely pressuring departmental RTI officers to manage disclosures in accordance with the “best interests of the government of the day”.
Commissioned by the Rockliff government in December 2024 following demands from Jacqui Lambie Network MPs, the review involved consultation with all government departments, councils from across the state, political parties, community members, and frequent users of the RTI system including journalists.
Presenting the ‘Getting Back on Track’ report to Premier Jeremy Rockliff at Parliament House on Tuesday, Professor McCormack said he and Assoc. Prof Rick Snell were confident genuine cultural reform could be achieved if recommendations from the review were adopted.
“We’ve found that the fundamental framework of the Right to Information … framework is not fundamentally broken, but there are some changes, improvements, and tweaks that can certainly happen to make our public’s participation in government to advance the goal of … transparency more effectively,” Professor McCormack said.
Citing the “widespread” community view that access to information on major Tasmanian projects – such as the proposed stadium, Spirit of Tasmania berths, and Marinus Link – was tightly held and controlled by government, the report calls on Tasmania’s political and bureaucratic leaders to make unequivocal commitments for cultural change.
“More is clearly needed – particularly in response to reticence to disclose information, which appears to reflect a default position favouring non-disclosure,” the report read.
“The management of the news agenda and deference to the view(s) of the senior executive service become additional, and sometimes determinative, factors in whether, and when, to release information.”
The report recommended the automatic release of Cabinet documents after 10 years, that Tasmania join other Westminster systems which routinely released cabinet policy information 30 days after a decision, and an expansion of routine disclosures made available via the government information gateway.
“Ultimately, we believe that the management and oversight of information in Tasmania would be best served by the establishment of a new institution – the Tasmanian Information Commission,” the authors wrote.
“A new Commissioner would assume all the functions currently held by the Ombudsman in relation to the RTI Framework, along with oversight of the interface and interaction between RTI and personal information protection.”
Premier Rockliff thanked Prof McCormack and Assoc. Prof Snell for dedicating themselves to undertaking the review, which he said would help inform the government’s ongoing RTI Uplift Project.
“The Tasmanian government will carefully consider the report before providing a thorough response,” Premier Rockliff said.
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Originally published as Transparency report calls for Tasmanian information commissioner
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