"Details about the rise in the amount collected from income taxes or evidence of fraud in the first-home owner's grant were hardly the stuff of national security, High Court judge Michael Kirby suggested yesterday.
In a case challenging the secrecy surrounding public documents, Justice Kirby questioned why taxpayer-funded Treasury research on the effect of publicly announced policy should be kept secret from taxpayers.
"Why possibly in a nation like ours, in an open democracy with freedom of expression, could it be not in the public interest not to disclose a document made by public servants who are paid by the taxpayers of this country?" Justice Kirby asked.
The Government's right to keep information secret in the public interest under Freedom of Information laws is being tested in the High Court by The Australian."
This is what The Australian reported today.
How extraordinary that the PM-in-waiting [aka Treasurer Costello] is denying and preventing Australians [who are paying his salary and for his perks] from knowing about some pretty basic facts relating to the economy. Why? The ridiculous part of the situation is highlighted in this part of The Australian's article:
"Chief Justice Murray Gleeson said much of the evidence and legal argument put forward to support The Australian's case was very generalised and asked Dr Griffiths to use "concrete" examples about specific elements in the specific documents.
"We seem to be dealing with a high level of abstraction," the Chief Justice said.
Dr Griffiths said there was an "insurmountable difficulty" in showing Justice Gleeson the documents or describing them to him because no one in The Australian's legal team had seen them, as they were the very documents the Government had denied The Australian access to."
Read the full article here.
In a case challenging the secrecy surrounding public documents, Justice Kirby questioned why taxpayer-funded Treasury research on the effect of publicly announced policy should be kept secret from taxpayers.
"Why possibly in a nation like ours, in an open democracy with freedom of expression, could it be not in the public interest not to disclose a document made by public servants who are paid by the taxpayers of this country?" Justice Kirby asked.
The Government's right to keep information secret in the public interest under Freedom of Information laws is being tested in the High Court by The Australian."
This is what The Australian reported today.
How extraordinary that the PM-in-waiting [aka Treasurer Costello] is denying and preventing Australians [who are paying his salary and for his perks] from knowing about some pretty basic facts relating to the economy. Why? The ridiculous part of the situation is highlighted in this part of The Australian's article:
"Chief Justice Murray Gleeson said much of the evidence and legal argument put forward to support The Australian's case was very generalised and asked Dr Griffiths to use "concrete" examples about specific elements in the specific documents.
"We seem to be dealing with a high level of abstraction," the Chief Justice said.
Dr Griffiths said there was an "insurmountable difficulty" in showing Justice Gleeson the documents or describing them to him because no one in The Australian's legal team had seen them, as they were the very documents the Government had denied The Australian access to."
Read the full article here.
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