Commentaries

Date01 June 1983
DOI10.1177/0067205X8301400205
Published date01 June 1983
Subject MatterArticle
182
Federal Law Review [VOLUME
14
are apparently seeking information
to
assist with a claim or appeal.
So
far
as
I
am
aware the vast majority
have
been
satisfied with their perusal of their
files.
It
may
well
be
that the Veterans' Affairs experience
is
different
from
that of
other Departments because of the long-standing arrangements
for
access
to
files
and assistance
in
understanding their contents.
I
make
a
final
point: that a continuation of a situation
where
remarkably
few
instances of internal
review
arrangements having
to
be
used
will
cause
problems
for
those
who
are
to
undertake
reviews.
In
reading
Mrs
Burnett's
paper I
was
struck
by
how
much the passage of time has dimmed
my
recollec-
tion of various sections
in
the FOI
Act
on which I had
been
well
briefed only
six
to
nine months
ago.
It
seems that the
more
senior people
in
the Public Ser-
vice
will
face
problems of coming
to
grips
with
their responsibilities if the mat-
ters coming
to
them
for
review
are
as
few
and far between
as
has been the case
to
date. I
hope
this
will
not lead practitioners of investigative journalism
to
make
and pursue requests
to
assist
us
in
recalling the provisions of the
Act.
Mr
ROGER GYLES*
It
has been a
very
polite seminar so far and the reasonableness of the public
servants who have spoken has been noteworthy.
May
I just inject a slight note
of scepticism, based probably upon the number of years one has sought access
to
information on behalf of clients, and been refused; and sought
to
challenge
decisions when there have been no reasons given. Perhaps more importantly I
have
been involved
in
cases where either the other side or
my
own side
has
made claims
for
Crown privilege. I think those of
us
who
have
been involved
in
cases where Crown privilege
was
claimed
in
pre Sankey v Whitlam 1 days
will
appreciate that those claims
were
very
often
very
poorly based. I
am
not
speaking simply of Commonwealth authorities,
my
greater experience
is
with
the various State authorities. I think it
is
also fair
to
say
that Sankey v Whit/am
has
not received universal approval at all levels of the public service both
Commonwealth and State.
We
now
sometimes have the opportunity of ac-
tually seeing the documents that have been withheld because of the high public
interest involved. This cannot help but
make
us
rather sceptical because they
are often
very
routine
in
their nature.
May
I also
be
allowed a little scepticism about attitudes
to
freedom of in-
formation.
Being
a statutory
office
holder
for
the time being I
am
myself con-
fronted with the demands of the
new
administrative
law.
I
was
discussing a
question with
an
official
from
a
very
important department and I said "Well, I
suppose you
can
put a note
on
your
file
about that".
He
looked
at
me
as
ifl
was
absolutely
mad
and said "Files? I
have
no
files,
I
have
a series of internal
working documents!" With that slightly sceptical
eye,
may
I turn
to
some
of
the issues that
have
been raised
by
the previous speakers this morning.
BA,
LLB
(Syd); QC (NSW); Member Administrative
Review
Council.
I ( 1978)
142
CLR I.

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