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FOI? Your tax dollars being wasted

If this isn't the madness of the Federal Government on show [or trial?] it is hard to think of something better. To consider that this deals with FOI - remember, Freedom of Information! - is inane. As Mathew Moore, Fairfax FOI Editor writes in the SMH:

"More than a year after we asked for the documents that reveal the full impact of the Welfare to Work revolution, the Government has revealed a new explanation of why you can't see what's in them.

It's because some of the documents, now 18 months old, contain information "relating to government expectations of the future economy". That's right, old economic forecasts.

If such information was released it "could cause people and/or organisations to distort their behaviour with potentially adverse impacts on personal, company or broader economic performance". See, they are keeping them quiet for your own good.

We saw how determined the Government is over this matter in a three-day hearing in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal this week where the top silk Stephen Gageler, SC, led a four-man legal team from the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations to try to convince the tribunal's Deputy President Walker that he had the future of the economy in his hands."

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