Ombudsman lashes UTAS over rewrite of city move RTI request

The Ombudsman has criticised the University of Tasmania for rewriting a Right to Information request by the Save UTAS group seeking documents about its planned move to the Hobart CBD.

University of Tasmania (UTAS)

The Ombudsman has rebuked the University of Tasmania for rewriting a Right to Information request seeking documents about its planned move to the Hobart CBD.

In March last year, Save UTAS Group member Robert Hogan made an application for the minutes of all meetings of the UTAS Council since January 2015.

But the university changed the former senior public servant’s request so that it only related to “university decision-making on the move to a city-centric campus”.

It then released some information sought, except for sections it redacted under parts of the RTI Act exempting the disclosure of business-related information and that related to third parties.

Mr Hogan appealed the University’s decision.

“The Act makes no provision for a decision maker to unilaterally vary the scope of an application,” he said.

In a decision handed down this week, Ombudsman Richard Connock agreed.

“The University’s action in amending the scope of Mr Hogan’s application for assessed disclosure without his consent is not permitted under the Act,” his decision noted.

“The University’s actions in this regard resulted in Mr Hogan expressing a justifiable and significant degree of dissatisfaction with the University’s handling of the matter.

“Although the University is to be commended for promptly agreeing to rectify the problem by issuing a fresh decision, it is unfortunate that considerable resources were required to be expended by this office, the University and Mr Hogan in resolving the issue, which could have been avoided had the University applied the Act correctly in the first place.

“I hope that the University will act more carefully in future to ensure it complies with its legislative obligations.”

The Ombudsman also made a series of findings overturning many of the university’s redactions, including claims the release of information it claimed would hurt its competitive position.

“The release of an approved funding amount dating back to 2014 is unlikely to expose the University to competitive disadvantage given the passage of time,” he said about one redaction,” he said in one instance.

“As over eight years have passed, however, it is not apparent why there is any reasonable likelihood of competitive disadvantage.”

He also rejected a series of redactions on the basis they would disclose the business affairs of third parties.

“The University has not provided a sufficient explanation to discharge its onus to show why those details should be exempt,” his ruling said.

Mr Hogan welcomed the decision in a post on his blog the UTas Papers.

“I believe the deliberate strategy of UTAS has been to delay, obstruct and obfuscate in order to keep key documents, which should long since have been in the public domain, away from scrutiny,” he said.

“I believe that UTAS will not learn, as it should, from Ombudsman’s decisions because it does not want to.

“It will only ever put key information into the public domain if it feels compelled to do so — whether by direct pressure from the media, the Ombudsman or the Legislative Council Inquiry.

“Even the accuracy and completeness of that material will need to be carefully assessed.”

Comment was sought from the University.

Originally published as Ombudsman lashes UTAS over rewrite of city move RTI request