We must act now to save transparency

Mark Bailey during Question time at Parliament. Picture: Darren England.

Mark Bailey is not the first politician to use a private messaging system — in his case, an old Yahoo email account — and he won’t be the last.

But so long as politicians are allowed to decide the manner in which they exchange official information, and, more importantly, what is then done with that correspondence, they undermine the very government and constituents they claim to serve.

The Queensland Labor minister did not simply stop using his Yahoo account for official business. He sabotaged any attempt to scrutinise his correspondence, destroying all emails he had sent and received, regardless of content and any obligations under the Archives Act.

The old Freedom of Information Act, now known in Queensland as the Right to Information Act, reaches an unsure hand into these digital files. Bailey’s Yahoo emails had been accessed before, and The Australian had applied again only days before he deleted his account.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull also uses a private email address, Hillary Clinton-style, and FOI access to those official documents has proved hit and miss. Turnbull also uses messaging apps where correspondence is routinely deleted, for the benefit of security but the detriment

of public scrutiny. This is where the Bailey practice, sadly, becomes routine.

The federal minister for FOI, Attorney-General George Brandis, is, by his words and actions, no fan of FOI. He told a recent Estimates committee hearing that sections of the Archives Act that sought to protect official correspondence “came into being before these apps were invented”.

“It’s not quite as black and white as you might think,” suggested Brandis, a grey man revelling in the grey areas of law.

Yet issues this important need to be clarified, now, lest they facilitate future electoral deception, policy failure, official misconduct, political corruption or worse. Queensland at least has an anti-corruption commission, now undertaking a timely assessment of Bailey’s case, however there is no such authority federally. And investigators can only act when there is a suspicion of wrong doing.

Transparency and accountability are at risk so long as the digital revolution outpaces official policy and procedure. The erosion of traditional record-keeping principles and safeguards has already faded this account of history. Without action, it will taint governments everywhere.