A new global rating, which ranks how open access to information is within a country, places Australia in the middle, FOI expert Dr Johan Lidberg (pictured) says. We’ll know more about really how free and easy information is here, if it is, when Dr Lidberg’s new national survey is completed next year.
Australia middling on info rights
By Johan Lidberg*
The long awaited global Right to Information (RTI) rating is now out, with Australia positioned in the middle.
The ‘pillar’ systems of FOI/RTI, such as Sweden, Norway and Iceland, are on the lower third of the rating. Peter Timmins has an excellent summary in his Open and Shut blog. Highlights of his blog item are below.
I’m on the international advisory panel for the rating and have pointed out before that the RTI instrument is incomplete until a practical information access component/measure has been incorporated into the methodology. This was always the intention, but funding such a global study will be costly and it was decided to start with an assessment of the laws.
As a legal comparative study the RTI rating is the most ambitious FOI/RTI assessment tool thus far. But the current rating is incomplete in that it favours new laws over old ones. In terms of practical access the current rating puts Serbia at the top and the ‘template systems’ of the US and Sweden in the middle and on the lower half respectively. We know from earlier studies (Lidberg FOI Index, 2009) that practical information access is a problem in newer FOI systems and that old laws at times deliver far better practical access than the new ones. This data needs to be captured and worked into the RTI rating.
It will be very interesting to correlate the Australian RTI rating with the data I capture on the practical information access when I assess all Australian FOI systems starting next year, 2012.
* Johan Lidberg is a world expert on RTi/FOI, and co-deviser of an international index. He lectures in Communications at Monash University, Melbourne, and is a member of CLA.
Peter Timmins says:
In an international survey based on 61 credible indicators, the Commonwealth Freedom of Information Act, as amended through the 2009/2010 reform process, scored 86 out of a possible 150 and has been ranked 39 in a comparative table of the laws of 89 countries.
Australian law was assessed as just a little better than Canada with 85 points, but behind the USA 89, New Zealand 93, UK 95, Indonesia 102 and a long way behind the leaders Serbia 135, and India and Slovenia 130.
The focus of the survey was the adequacy of the law-not on how it works in practice. As the report notes, "countries with relatively weak laws may nonetheless be very open, due to positive implementation efforts, while even relatively strong laws cannot ensure openness if they are not implemented properly."
The study was conducted by Access Info Europe (Spain) and the Centre for Law and Democracy (Canada). The 61 Indicators( more information here) are grouped into seven categories. Australian scores against the maximum were:
|
Section |
Max Points |
|
1. Right of Access |
Australia 2/6 |
|
2. Scope |
10/30 |
|
3. Requesting Procedures |
21/30 |
|
4. Exceptions and Refusals |
15/30 |
|
5. Appeals |
24/30 |
|
6. Sanctions and Protections |
4/8 |
|
7. Promotional Measures |
10/16 |
|
Total score |
86/150 |