The veil of secrecy surrounding the ACT's ailing child protection system could be further widened, under territory government plans to exempt all child protection reports from Freedom of Information requests.
Attorney-General Gordon Ramsay on Thursday introduced an omnibus bill that would create the blanket exemption, which could also expand legal aid help for low-income Canberrans and widen exemptions from jury duty for part-time teachers.
Attorney-General Gordon Ramsay's bill would expand the veil of secrecy over the territory's child protection system.Credit: Karleen Minney
The proposed changes to the Freedom of Information Act follow the government delaying by 12 months major reforms to the information access scheme driven by the ACT Greens, as well as closing access to applications under the new Act for information held before the final changes came into effect in January last year.
It comes as the ACT government faces criticism over its poor performance on child protection - particularly for Canberra's indigenous children - in a system senior legal figures have labelled the nation's most secretive.
While the government argues the latest changes are an effort to protect the privacy of children, those reporting allegations of abuse or neglect and other third parties, the privacy of such people can already be protected, by simply redacting identifying information requested under the current laws.
Senior Canberra barrister Philip Walker SC has previously said that while nobody needed to know names, it was "absolutely appropriate that people see exactly what cases are advanced by welfare authorities and can judge whether they're discharging their responsibilities properly and effectively".
Mr Walker also said the extent of legislation used to suppress information about ACT child protection cases appeared to be motivated by a desire to protect child welfare agencies.
In introducing the bill, Mr Ramsay made no mention of the proposed changes to the Freedom of Information Act related to child protection reports and he declined to answer questions on the matter on Thursday.
An explanatory statement Mr Ramsay tabled with the bill showed the changes to the information access scheme were being made to align the Act with the way the Children and Young People Act deals with sensitive information, which includes child protection reports.
Other changes in the bill would expand an exemption from doing jury duty for full-time teachers and emergency workers to part-time and casual workers in the same jobs.
Mr Ramsay said that change was a gender equality measure, as it would extend the same provisions available to full-time workers in those roles to other employees no part-time and casual contracts, which were disproportionately women, particularly mothers of young children.
The bill will also expand access to legal aid to help low-income Canberra families in need of help to resolve family disputes will be widened to help avoid the need to hire more expensive private lawyers.
For low-income families needing family dispute resolution services, the bill will remove a current requirement for all cases coming before Legal Aid ACT to be matched with a financial grant from the Legal Aid Commission.
That change, Mr Ramsay said, would mean such families, who might currently miss out on legal aid, would no longer need to seek out a private lawyer to help sort out their disputes without going to court.
Another measure in the bill would clear up an oversight when the government made recent changes to the Residential Tenancies Act that erroneously removed the criteria for conditional termination and possession orders, which can be used to recover rental arrears before a tenant is evicted.