The Accountability Roundtable is urging greater reforms to Australia’s freedom of information regime.

It is one of 16 organisations and individuals committed to greater transparency that signed an open letter to the Attorney-General, Mark Dreyfus, welcoming improvements that have been made by the Albanese Government, but saying more to be done to ensure that the Australia has a system that truly operates as a right to information regime.

The last decade has seen secrecy and obstruction as the culture of FOI, resulting in a highly dysfunctional system. 

ART strongly believes that we need to adopt a right to information regime, based on the Queensland model, with access the default position on releasing information.  It endorses the recommendations of the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs committee.

“Information on government decision-making is essential to understanding whether we are being properly governed and for whom we should vote,” said ART director Geoffrey Watson SC.

“It is a cornerstone of democracy.”