Somewhere in Melbourne, there's a public hospital where the risk of something going wrong is much greater than in another hospital across town
But you’re not allowed to know which hospital it is – because this type of data is hidden from patients and doctors.
A
few kilometres away, buried in the files of the state Education
Department, an explosive police report exists with allegations of a sex
“grooming” ring linked to a suburban school.
Just don’t expect the
government to release it because, bureaucrats claim, the report is
exempt under Freedom of Information laws from ever being disclosed.
______
"I think there is still very much a
culture in large parts of the [government] sector that’s more about,
‘How can I refuse disclosure?"
Victoria's Information Commissioner, Sven Bluemmel
And in the corridors of power at
Town Hall, important decisions are being made about the City of
Melbourne – about everything from new developments and contracts to
transport improvements and rates.
The trouble is, more than a quarter of those decisions are made behind closed doors – and some remain confidential indefinitely.
Increasingly,
Victoria is a secret state. Almost every aspect of our government, our
legal system, and our public services is pervaded by a creeping lack of
transparency.
From the Premier’s Office at Treasury Place to
police departments, health, schools and the courts, a veil of secrecy is
undermining democracy and having an impact on how we live.
What’s
more, the laws that are supposed to ensure transparency – from the
Freedom of Information Act to the Open Courts Act – are, in fact,
resulting in exactly the opposite.
As Victoria's Information
Commissioner, Sven Bluemmel, says, "I think there is still very much a
culture in large parts of the [government] sector that’s more about,
‘How can I refuse disclosure?'".
In coming days, an
Age
investigation will examine how Victorians are being kept in the dark and
the effect this is having on the public debate. We’ll also ask to hear
your stories.
... cabinet always
meets in secret; cabinet documents tend to be secret; and the public
service is beholden to government of the day
Monash University politics lecturer Nick Economou
The
notion of a secret government is not unique to Victoria. Its genesis
goes back centuries to a time when monarchs protected themselves against
rivals and official information was considered the property of the
Crown.
In
Australia, it was the colony of Victoria that set the pattern,
according to an Australian Law Reform Commission report: in 1867,
Victoria created the first secrecy provision in Australia, forbidding
public servants from giving out information without the permission of a
minister.
“It’s a throwback to the origins of our Westminster
system – cabinet always meets in secret; cabinet documents tend to be
secret; and the public service is beholden to government of the day,”
says Monash University politics lecturer Nick Economou, who has been an
observer of the state’s political landscape for decades.
Since
then, various pieces of legislation have tried to cut against the grain
and reverse the culture of keeping things hidden. The Freedom of
Information Act, for instance, was introduced in 1982 to “extend as far
as possible the right of the community to access to information in the
possession of the Government of Victoria”.
The Open Courts Act was
created to “strengthen and promote the principles of open justice and
free communication of information”.
Both, largely, have failed.
The Age has uncovered:
More people are seeking access to information than ever before, yet even
the watchdog who oversees the system says departments and agencies are
plagued by a “culture of secrecy”.
First year of reporting: 1984-85
Government decisions
Top 5 public sector agencies with most requests:
- Victoria Police
- Melbourne Health
- Alfred Health
- Ambulance Victoria
- Monash Health
Source: FOI Annual Report 2016-17
Despite being accountable to the ratepayers who elect them, all but two
of Victoria’s 79 councils held meetings behind closed doors in the last
financial year, with East Gippsland Shire, the City of Melbourne, and
Whittlesea Council among the worst in the state.
Top 5 most secretive Councils
Percentage of closed meetings 2016-17
Most secretive Councils by type
Percentage of closed meetings, 2016-17.
For all the attempts to improve transparency, secrecy permeates
Victoria’s health system, from gag orders on doctors to fudged figures
on hospital waiting lists, and sexual assaults being covered up in
psychiatric wards.
Department of Health and Human Services
Waiting lists drop ahead of reporting system
Number of elective surgery patients on waiting list (total)
Almost 1600 court orders to suppress information were made between
January 1, 2014 and December 31, 2016 – including court orders keeping
some of Victoria’s worst paedophiles a secret. Their victims want this
reformed.
Court orders
From January 1, 2015 to December 31, 2016,
1594 orders with the effect of suppressing information under various sources of power, with
1,279 orders made under the Open Courts Act. Of these ...
Daniel Andrews was elected partly on a platform to improve transparency.
Four years later, Labor has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars
trying to block the rorts-for-votes affair in the courts; hundreds of
“questions on notice” remain unanswered in the Victorian Parliament; and
many of the government's transparency reforms have fallen short.
FOI requests
Source: FOI Annual Report, 2016-2017.
Victoria prides itself on being the “education state”. Yet schools
say they're often kept in the dark about policy changes and parents
claim they can't always get crucial information about how their children
are faring.
The parents of a child with a disability at a primary school in
Gippsland feared he had been inappropriately restrained after lashing
out at the principal. But when they sought access to their son’s files -
including staff diary notes, incident reports, and behaviour plans -
they were told the request “would pose a substantial and unreasonable
diversion of resources to process.”
Can any of this change?
Monash
Adjunct Professor Colleen Lewis, an expert on public sector integrity,
says there have been steps taken to improve the situation – but whether
they're enough is open to debate.
Among Victoria’s public
watchdogs, there is now an Ombudsman to deal with public sector
complaints; an anti-corruption commission to tackle police misconduct
and government corruption; an auditor-general to scrutinise the spending
of taxpayer funds; and a local government inspectorate to oversee
councils.
But, according to Dr Lewis, these integrity bodies are
often hampered by lack of powers and resources, and are subject to the
whims of politicians keenly focused on self-preservation and media
pressure.
And all of this is happening in an age where we trust
institutions less: of the 28 countries surveyed for the annual Edelman
Trust Barometer published in February, Australia ranks 21st for the
people's overall level of trust in institutions of all kinds, including
government, business, the media and NGOs.
"One of things that
would help with the lack of trust would be more accountability, more
openness, more transparency,” says Dr Lewis.
Economou agrees.
“Ultimately,
though, governments do this stuff because they’re fearful of the
political consequences if too much of their information becomes public.
“And
this government is like all the ones that preceded it: in favour of
full disclosure in opposition, but far less so when it’s in office.”
Source: 29 Aug 2018, theage.com.au
