❓ Question regarding the increased workload of the Office of the Information Commissioner. The Attorney General acknowledges the increase but attributes it to a rise in complaints from members of Parliament, questioning the quality and motivation behind these complaints.
AnsweredQoN 668Legislative Assembly
QuestionView source ↗
OFFICE OF THE INFORMATION COMMISSIONER — WORKLOAD INCREASE
Before asking my question, I acknowledge, on behalf of the member for Alfred Cove, the students of Santa Maria College, who are in the public gallery today. I refer to the 2009-10 ongoing estimates hearing on 7 September 2009 regarding the Office of the Information Commissioner. During the hearing the commissioner informed the committee that his office’s workload had increased by 80 per cent in the past year. Can the Attorney General elaborate on this issue and speak to the consequences of this increased workload? Mr C.C. PORTER
Before asking my question, I acknowledge, on behalf of the member for Alfred Cove, the students of Santa Maria College, who are in the public gallery today. I refer to the 2009-10 ongoing estimates hearing on 7 September 2009 regarding the Office of the Information Commissioner. During the hearing the commissioner informed the committee that his office’s workload had increased by 80 per cent in the past year. Can the Attorney General elaborate on this issue and speak to the consequences of this increased workload? Mr C.C. PORTER
AnswerView source ↗
I thank the member for Kingsley for her question. The government takes the matter of government access and accountability very seriously. It was an election commitment, and we remain committed to it. In fact, some of the press releases that have emanated from the office of Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich consequent upon the ongoing estimates hearings have been, to say the least, quite hurtful, when we consider what has actually been happening. There is a backlog of complaints that the Information Commissioner is dealing with, and I will be meeting with him this afternoon on that issue. However, it is instructive in these circumstances to take that backlog in context. We are dealing with either an unprecedented influx of freedom of information applications and complaints — Mr E.S. Ripper : Or an unprecedented ministerial resistance to providing information? Maybe that is what we are dealing with. Mr C.C. PORTER : The Leader of the Opposition raises a very good point, because the quality of the applications and the quality of the complaints is precisely the nub of this issue. The first thing to do is to look at the context of this matter. I have undertaken a bit of analysis of the applications and complaints that have been made between 2008-09 and 2007-08; that is, a comparison between two years. The number of formal complaints has increased from 102 to 180, which is a 66 per cent increase. That is significant by any measure, but where are the complaints coming from? The number of complaints from individual members of the public has actually decreased by seven per cent, so they are obviously happy with the job government is doing on FOI applications. Mr T.G. Stephens : The opposition is doing it on behalf of the public. Mr C.C. PORTER : Is that right? That is an interesting supposition, and I will get to that. The number of complaints from the media has halved. The media are obviously very happy with our responsiveness. Where are the complaints coming from? Complaints from members of Parliament have increased by 2 000 per cent. To be fair, it is a brilliant political strategy—bombard the Information Commissioner with spurious applications and complain about every refusal, and those complaints must all be dealt with, no matter how mindless they are, and then make a press release complaining that there is a backlog. This goes to the issue of the quality of the applications. I will provide an example. This is not the example of a parliamentary question that I had recently about what sort of on-hold telephone music our offices play. That was a savagely insightful question! Mr E.S. Ripper : It is if you break the law and don’t pay the copyright fees. You are the Attorney General. Mr C.C. PORTER : Does the Leader of the Opposition have any evidence that there has been — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order! Members on my left might have suggestions about how the Attorney General should be answering this question. My preference at this point is to hear from the Attorney General. Mr C.C. PORTER : I refer to request 20080068. The request was for all documents and correspondence within the Premier’s office requested and received from agencies other than the Department of Industry and Resources and the Department of the Premier and Cabinet. That really narrows it down. How long would it take to deal with one of those matters? We must take a look at the environment in which we have been placed, and read the media statements released by Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich. She states — It was also revealed that 40 per cent of complaints received over the past year were complaints made against Ministers’ offices. That is quite right, but again I draw attention to the quality of those complaints. I advise members present to read the recent decision of the Office of the Information Commissioner, reference number D0172009, which is online. It was a complaint about the refusal of my office to deal with a request from Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich on 6 March 2009, which read — “I wish to gain access to the following information from the 23rd September 2008: · Your diary · Your daily itinerary documents; and · Documents detailing the expenditure on your Ministerial credit card”. Mr E.S. Ripper : We always gave out that information when in government, but you refused. Open, accountable, honest—not. Mr C.C. PORTER : It is interesting, is it not? In those circumstances, I was happy to narrow the request. I gave advice back to Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich’s office to narrow that request, but that was the subject of a complaint. The Information Commissioner made some statements about that complaint. In a preliminary opinion, for which he sought response, he stated — · It is reasonable to expect that, as a former Minister of the State Government, the complainant is well versed in the amount of work involved in dealing with her application and the ways in which it could be reduced to a manageable level. Both as the recipient of FOI access applications and as an FOI access applicant, the complainant has considerable experience and knowledge in the workings of the FOI Act. · The assistance provided by the Minister’s office to change the scope of the complainant’s access application was reasonable in the circumstances. · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work — The SPEAKER : Some members might not necessarily want to hear from the Attorney General. The question has been asked, and he is giving the answer. I formally call to order for the first time the member for Collie-Preston and the member for Albany. Mr C.C. PORTER : I think I was at the point at which I was outlining the Information Commissioner’s preliminary views, to which a response was sought. One of those preliminary views was — · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work involved in dealing with the application. To those preliminary views, Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich got a chance to respond, and this was her response. Do members want to hear the response? Government members: Yes! Mr C.C. PORTER : Okay. The response to the Information Commissioner was as follows — · The complainant’s position as a former Minister cannot be taken into account in dealing with any access applications made by her, given that her duties as a Shadow Minister and a Member of the Western Australian Parliament render her too busy to deal with each individual access application personally. The daily business of the access application is the responsibility of the complainant’s research officer who has not previously worked in a Ministerial office and who is not aware of the amount of work that an access application would entail. · The Minister took advantage — This is the submission that was sent back to the Information Commissioner — · The Minister took advantage of the lack of knowledge of the complainant’s research officer by not supplying enough information to enable her to make an educated decision on the scope of the access application and by not providing enough advice to enable her to make the correct decision. I took advantage of a person I did not know existed! A person cannot create the problem and then complain about it. I will be meeting with the Information Commissioner to see what we can do to expedite the procedures. However, complaints of this nature are absolutely ridiculous. Point of Order Mr J.C. KOBELKE : Mr Speaker, I appreciate that under standing orders question time is something that is totally within your control, but I think it is appropriate that I put to you that the Attorney General taking more than nine minutes to answer a dorothy dixer could perhaps be considered an abuse of question time, or it might simply be that the Attorney General is under the misapprehension that, as a lawyer, he gets paid for the amount of time he wastes. The SPEAKER : Members will have observed in previous question times that I am quite prepared to implement a range of measures, such as to sit members down or to shorten question time. I appreciate what the member for Balcatta said.
I refer to the 2009-10 ongoing estimates hearing on 7 September 2009 regarding the Office of the Information Commissioner. During the hearing the commissioner informed the committee that his office’s workload had increased by 80 per cent in the past year. Can the Attorney General elaborate on this issue and speak to the consequences of this increased workload? Mr C.C. PORTER replied: I thank the member for Kingsley for her question. The government takes the matter of government access and accountability very seriously. It was an election commitment, and we remain committed to it. In fact, some of the press releases that have emanated from the office of Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich consequent upon the ongoing estimates hearings have been, to say the least, quite hurtful, when we consider what has actually been happening. There is a backlog of complaints that the Information Commissioner is dealing with, and I will be meeting with him this afternoon on that issue. However, it is instructive in these circumstances to take that backlog in context. We are dealing with either an unprecedented influx of freedom of information applications and complaints — Mr E.S. Ripper : Or an unprecedented ministerial resistance to providing information? Maybe that is what we are dealing with. Mr C.C. PORTER : The Leader of the Opposition raises a very good point, because the quality of the applications and the quality of the complaints is precisely the nub of this issue. The first thing to do is to look at the context of this matter. I have undertaken a bit of analysis of the applications and complaints that have been made between 2008-09 and 2007-08; that is, a comparison between two years. The number of formal complaints has increased from 102 to 180, which is a 66 per cent increase. That is significant by any measure, but where are the complaints coming from? The number of complaints from individual members of the public has actually decreased by seven per cent, so they are obviously happy with the job government is doing on FOI applications. Mr T.G. Stephens : The opposition is doing it on behalf of the public. Mr C.C. PORTER : Is that right? That is an interesting supposition, and I will get to that. The number of complaints from the media has halved. The media are obviously very happy with our responsiveness. Where are the complaints coming from? Complaints from members of Parliament have increased by 2 000 per cent. To be fair, it is a brilliant political strategy—bombard the Information Commissioner with spurious applications and complain about every refusal, and those complaints must all be dealt with, no matter how mindless they are, and then make a press release complaining that there is a backlog. This goes to the issue of the quality of the applications. I will provide an example. This is not the example of a parliamentary question that I had recently about what sort of on-hold telephone music our offices play. That was a savagely insightful question! Mr E.S. Ripper : It is if you break the law and don’t pay the copyright fees. You are the Attorney General. Mr C.C. PORTER : Does the Leader of the Opposition have any evidence that there has been — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order! Members on my left might have suggestions about how the Attorney General should be answering this question. My preference at this point is to hear from the Attorney General. Mr C.C. PORTER : I refer to request 20080068. The request was for all documents and correspondence within the Premier’s office requested and received from agencies other than the Department of Industry and Resources and the Department of the Premier and Cabinet. That really narrows it down. How long would it take to deal with one of those matters? We must take a look at the environment in which we have been placed, and read the media statements released by Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich. She states — It was also revealed that 40 per cent of complaints received over the past year were complaints made against Ministers’ offices. That is quite right, but again I draw attention to the quality of those complaints. I advise members present to read the recent decision of the Office of the Information Commissioner, reference number D0172009, which is online. It was a complaint about the refusal of my office to deal with a request from Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich on 6 March 2009, which read — “I wish to gain access to the following information from the 23rd September 2008: · Your diary · Your daily itinerary documents; and · Documents detailing the expenditure on your Ministerial credit card”. Mr E.S. Ripper : We always gave out that information when in government, but you refused. Open, accountable, honest—not. Mr C.C. PORTER : It is interesting, is it not? In those circumstances, I was happy to narrow the request. I gave advice back to Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich’s office to narrow that request, but that was the subject of a complaint. The Information Commissioner made some statements about that complaint. In a preliminary opinion, for which he sought response, he stated — · It is reasonable to expect that, as a former Minister of the State Government, the complainant is well versed in the amount of work involved in dealing with her application and the ways in which it could be reduced to a manageable level. Both as the recipient of FOI access applications and as an FOI access applicant, the complainant has considerable experience and knowledge in the workings of the FOI Act. · The assistance provided by the Minister’s office to change the scope of the complainant’s access application was reasonable in the circumstances. · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work — The SPEAKER : Some members might not necessarily want to hear from the Attorney General. The question has been asked, and he is giving the answer. I formally call to order for the first time the member for Collie-Preston and the member for Albany. Mr C.C. PORTER : I think I was at the point at which I was outlining the Information Commissioner’s preliminary views, to which a response was sought. One of those preliminary views was — · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work involved in dealing with the application. To those preliminary views, Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich got a chance to respond, and this was her response. Do members want to hear the response? Government members: Yes! Mr C.C. PORTER : Okay. The response to the Information Commissioner was as follows — · The complainant’s position as a former Minister cannot be taken into account in dealing with any access applications made by her, given that her duties as a Shadow Minister and a Member of the Western Australian Parliament render her too busy to deal with each individual access application personally. The daily business of the access application is the responsibility of the complainant’s research officer who has not previously worked in a Ministerial office and who is not aware of the amount of work that an access application would entail. · The Minister took advantage — This is the submission that was sent back to the Information Commissioner — · The Minister took advantage of the lack of knowledge of the complainant’s research officer by not supplying enough information to enable her to make an educated decision on the scope of the access application and by not providing enough advice to enable her to make the correct decision. I took advantage of a person I did not know existed! A person cannot create the problem and then complain about it. I will be meeting with the Information Commissioner to see what we can do to expedite the procedures. However, complaints of this nature are absolutely ridiculous. Point of Order Mr J.C. KOBELKE : Mr Speaker, I appreciate that under standing orders question time is something that is totally within your control, but I think it is appropriate that I put to you that the Attorney General taking more than nine minutes to answer a dorothy dixer could perhaps be considered an abuse of question time, or it might simply be that the Attorney General is under the misapprehension that, as a lawyer, he gets paid for the amount of time he wastes. The SPEAKER : Members will have observed in previous question times that I am quite prepared to implement a range of measures, such as to sit members down or to shorten question time. I appreciate what the member for Balcatta said.
Mr C.C. PORTER replied: I thank the member for Kingsley for her question. The government takes the matter of government access and accountability very seriously. It was an election commitment, and we remain committed to it. In fact, some of the press releases that have emanated from the office of Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich consequent upon the ongoing estimates hearings have been, to say the least, quite hurtful, when we consider what has actually been happening. There is a backlog of complaints that the Information Commissioner is dealing with, and I will be meeting with him this afternoon on that issue. However, it is instructive in these circumstances to take that backlog in context. We are dealing with either an unprecedented influx of freedom of information applications and complaints — Mr E.S. Ripper : Or an unprecedented ministerial resistance to providing information? Maybe that is what we are dealing with. Mr C.C. PORTER : The Leader of the Opposition raises a very good point, because the quality of the applications and the quality of the complaints is precisely the nub of this issue. The first thing to do is to look at the context of this matter. I have undertaken a bit of analysis of the applications and complaints that have been made between 2008-09 and 2007-08; that is, a comparison between two years. The number of formal complaints has increased from 102 to 180, which is a 66 per cent increase. That is significant by any measure, but where are the complaints coming from? The number of complaints from individual members of the public has actually decreased by seven per cent, so they are obviously happy with the job government is doing on FOI applications. Mr T.G. Stephens : The opposition is doing it on behalf of the public. Mr C.C. PORTER : Is that right? That is an interesting supposition, and I will get to that. The number of complaints from the media has halved. The media are obviously very happy with our responsiveness. Where are the complaints coming from? Complaints from members of Parliament have increased by 2 000 per cent. To be fair, it is a brilliant political strategy—bombard the Information Commissioner with spurious applications and complain about every refusal, and those complaints must all be dealt with, no matter how mindless they are, and then make a press release complaining that there is a backlog. This goes to the issue of the quality of the applications. I will provide an example. This is not the example of a parliamentary question that I had recently about what sort of on-hold telephone music our offices play. That was a savagely insightful question! Mr E.S. Ripper : It is if you break the law and don’t pay the copyright fees. You are the Attorney General. Mr C.C. PORTER : Does the Leader of the Opposition have any evidence that there has been — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order! Members on my left might have suggestions about how the Attorney General should be answering this question. My preference at this point is to hear from the Attorney General. Mr C.C. PORTER : I refer to request 20080068. The request was for all documents and correspondence within the Premier’s office requested and received from agencies other than the Department of Industry and Resources and the Department of the Premier and Cabinet. That really narrows it down. How long would it take to deal with one of those matters? We must take a look at the environment in which we have been placed, and read the media statements released by Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich. She states — It was also revealed that 40 per cent of complaints received over the past year were complaints made against Ministers’ offices. That is quite right, but again I draw attention to the quality of those complaints. I advise members present to read the recent decision of the Office of the Information Commissioner, reference number D0172009, which is online. It was a complaint about the refusal of my office to deal with a request from Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich on 6 March 2009, which read — “I wish to gain access to the following information from the 23rd September 2008: · Your diary · Your daily itinerary documents; and · Documents detailing the expenditure on your Ministerial credit card”. Mr E.S. Ripper : We always gave out that information when in government, but you refused. Open, accountable, honest—not. Mr C.C. PORTER : It is interesting, is it not? In those circumstances, I was happy to narrow the request. I gave advice back to Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich’s office to narrow that request, but that was the subject of a complaint. The Information Commissioner made some statements about that complaint. In a preliminary opinion, for which he sought response, he stated — · It is reasonable to expect that, as a former Minister of the State Government, the complainant is well versed in the amount of work involved in dealing with her application and the ways in which it could be reduced to a manageable level. Both as the recipient of FOI access applications and as an FOI access applicant, the complainant has considerable experience and knowledge in the workings of the FOI Act. · The assistance provided by the Minister’s office to change the scope of the complainant’s access application was reasonable in the circumstances. · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work — The SPEAKER : Some members might not necessarily want to hear from the Attorney General. The question has been asked, and he is giving the answer. I formally call to order for the first time the member for Collie-Preston and the member for Albany. Mr C.C. PORTER : I think I was at the point at which I was outlining the Information Commissioner’s preliminary views, to which a response was sought. One of those preliminary views was — · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work involved in dealing with the application. To those preliminary views, Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich got a chance to respond, and this was her response. Do members want to hear the response? Government members: Yes! Mr C.C. PORTER : Okay. The response to the Information Commissioner was as follows — · The complainant’s position as a former Minister cannot be taken into account in dealing with any access applications made by her, given that her duties as a Shadow Minister and a Member of the Western Australian Parliament render her too busy to deal with each individual access application personally. The daily business of the access application is the responsibility of the complainant’s research officer who has not previously worked in a Ministerial office and who is not aware of the amount of work that an access application would entail. · The Minister took advantage — This is the submission that was sent back to the Information Commissioner — · The Minister took advantage of the lack of knowledge of the complainant’s research officer by not supplying enough information to enable her to make an educated decision on the scope of the access application and by not providing enough advice to enable her to make the correct decision. I took advantage of a person I did not know existed! A person cannot create the problem and then complain about it. I will be meeting with the Information Commissioner to see what we can do to expedite the procedures. However, complaints of this nature are absolutely ridiculous. Point of Order Mr J.C. KOBELKE : Mr Speaker, I appreciate that under standing orders question time is something that is totally within your control, but I think it is appropriate that I put to you that the Attorney General taking more than nine minutes to answer a dorothy dixer could perhaps be considered an abuse of question time, or it might simply be that the Attorney General is under the misapprehension that, as a lawyer, he gets paid for the amount of time he wastes. The SPEAKER : Members will have observed in previous question times that I am quite prepared to implement a range of measures, such as to sit members down or to shorten question time. I appreciate what the member for Balcatta said.
I thank the member for Kingsley for her question. The government takes the matter of government access and accountability very seriously. It was an election commitment, and we remain committed to it. In fact, some of the press releases that have emanated from the office of Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich consequent upon the ongoing estimates hearings have been, to say the least, quite hurtful, when we consider what has actually been happening. There is a backlog of complaints that the Information Commissioner is dealing with, and I will be meeting with him this afternoon on that issue. However, it is instructive in these circumstances to take that backlog in context. We are dealing with either an unprecedented influx of freedom of information applications and complaints — Mr E.S. Ripper : Or an unprecedented ministerial resistance to providing information? Maybe that is what we are dealing with. Mr C.C. PORTER : The Leader of the Opposition raises a very good point, because the quality of the applications and the quality of the complaints is precisely the nub of this issue. The first thing to do is to look at the context of this matter. I have undertaken a bit of analysis of the applications and complaints that have been made between 2008-09 and 2007-08; that is, a comparison between two years. The number of formal complaints has increased from 102 to 180, which is a 66 per cent increase. That is significant by any measure, but where are the complaints coming from? The number of complaints from individual members of the public has actually decreased by seven per cent, so they are obviously happy with the job government is doing on FOI applications. Mr T.G. Stephens : The opposition is doing it on behalf of the public. Mr C.C. PORTER : Is that right? That is an interesting supposition, and I will get to that. The number of complaints from the media has halved. The media are obviously very happy with our responsiveness. Where are the complaints coming from? Complaints from members of Parliament have increased by 2 000 per cent. To be fair, it is a brilliant political strategy—bombard the Information Commissioner with spurious applications and complain about every refusal, and those complaints must all be dealt with, no matter how mindless they are, and then make a press release complaining that there is a backlog. This goes to the issue of the quality of the applications. I will provide an example. This is not the example of a parliamentary question that I had recently about what sort of on-hold telephone music our offices play. That was a savagely insightful question! Mr E.S. Ripper : It is if you break the law and don’t pay the copyright fees. You are the Attorney General. Mr C.C. PORTER : Does the Leader of the Opposition have any evidence that there has been — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order! Members on my left might have suggestions about how the Attorney General should be answering this question. My preference at this point is to hear from the Attorney General. Mr C.C. PORTER : I refer to request 20080068. The request was for all documents and correspondence within the Premier’s office requested and received from agencies other than the Department of Industry and Resources and the Department of the Premier and Cabinet. That really narrows it down. How long would it take to deal with one of those matters? We must take a look at the environment in which we have been placed, and read the media statements released by Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich. She states — It was also revealed that 40 per cent of complaints received over the past year were complaints made against Ministers’ offices. That is quite right, but again I draw attention to the quality of those complaints. I advise members present to read the recent decision of the Office of the Information Commissioner, reference number D0172009, which is online. It was a complaint about the refusal of my office to deal with a request from Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich on 6 March 2009, which read — “I wish to gain access to the following information from the 23rd September 2008: · Your diary · Your daily itinerary documents; and · Documents detailing the expenditure on your Ministerial credit card”. Mr E.S. Ripper : We always gave out that information when in government, but you refused. Open, accountable, honest—not. Mr C.C. PORTER : It is interesting, is it not? In those circumstances, I was happy to narrow the request. I gave advice back to Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich’s office to narrow that request, but that was the subject of a complaint. The Information Commissioner made some statements about that complaint. In a preliminary opinion, for which he sought response, he stated — · It is reasonable to expect that, as a former Minister of the State Government, the complainant is well versed in the amount of work involved in dealing with her application and the ways in which it could be reduced to a manageable level. Both as the recipient of FOI access applications and as an FOI access applicant, the complainant has considerable experience and knowledge in the workings of the FOI Act. · The assistance provided by the Minister’s office to change the scope of the complainant’s access application was reasonable in the circumstances. · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work — The SPEAKER : Some members might not necessarily want to hear from the Attorney General. The question has been asked, and he is giving the answer. I formally call to order for the first time the member for Collie-Preston and the member for Albany. Mr C.C. PORTER : I think I was at the point at which I was outlining the Information Commissioner’s preliminary views, to which a response was sought. One of those preliminary views was — · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work involved in dealing with the application. To those preliminary views, Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich got a chance to respond, and this was her response. Do members want to hear the response? Government members: Yes! Mr C.C. PORTER : Okay. The response to the Information Commissioner was as follows — · The complainant’s position as a former Minister cannot be taken into account in dealing with any access applications made by her, given that her duties as a Shadow Minister and a Member of the Western Australian Parliament render her too busy to deal with each individual access application personally. The daily business of the access application is the responsibility of the complainant’s research officer who has not previously worked in a Ministerial office and who is not aware of the amount of work that an access application would entail. · The Minister took advantage — This is the submission that was sent back to the Information Commissioner — · The Minister took advantage of the lack of knowledge of the complainant’s research officer by not supplying enough information to enable her to make an educated decision on the scope of the access application and by not providing enough advice to enable her to make the correct decision. I took advantage of a person I did not know existed! A person cannot create the problem and then complain about it. I will be meeting with the Information Commissioner to see what we can do to expedite the procedures. However, complaints of this nature are absolutely ridiculous. Point of Order Mr J.C. KOBELKE : Mr Speaker, I appreciate that under standing orders question time is something that is totally within your control, but I think it is appropriate that I put to you that the Attorney General taking more than nine minutes to answer a dorothy dixer could perhaps be considered an abuse of question time, or it might simply be that the Attorney General is under the misapprehension that, as a lawyer, he gets paid for the amount of time he wastes. The SPEAKER : Members will have observed in previous question times that I am quite prepared to implement a range of measures, such as to sit members down or to shorten question time. I appreciate what the member for Balcatta said.
Mr E.S. Ripper : Or an unprecedented ministerial resistance to providing information? Maybe that is what we are dealing with. Mr C.C. PORTER : The Leader of the Opposition raises a very good point, because the quality of the applications and the quality of the complaints is precisely the nub of this issue. The first thing to do is to look at the context of this matter. I have undertaken a bit of analysis of the applications and complaints that have been made between 2008-09 and 2007-08; that is, a comparison between two years. The number of formal complaints has increased from 102 to 180, which is a 66 per cent increase. That is significant by any measure, but where are the complaints coming from? The number of complaints from individual members of the public has actually decreased by seven per cent, so they are obviously happy with the job government is doing on FOI applications. Mr T.G. Stephens : The opposition is doing it on behalf of the public. Mr C.C. PORTER : Is that right? That is an interesting supposition, and I will get to that. The number of complaints from the media has halved. The media are obviously very happy with our responsiveness. Where are the complaints coming from? Complaints from members of Parliament have increased by 2 000 per cent. To be fair, it is a brilliant political strategy—bombard the Information Commissioner with spurious applications and complain about every refusal, and those complaints must all be dealt with, no matter how mindless they are, and then make a press release complaining that there is a backlog. This goes to the issue of the quality of the applications. I will provide an example. This is not the example of a parliamentary question that I had recently about what sort of on-hold telephone music our offices play. That was a savagely insightful question! Mr E.S. Ripper : It is if you break the law and don’t pay the copyright fees. You are the Attorney General. Mr C.C. PORTER : Does the Leader of the Opposition have any evidence that there has been — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order! Members on my left might have suggestions about how the Attorney General should be answering this question. My preference at this point is to hear from the Attorney General. Mr C.C. PORTER : I refer to request 20080068. The request was for all documents and correspondence within the Premier’s office requested and received from agencies other than the Department of Industry and Resources and the Department of the Premier and Cabinet. That really narrows it down. How long would it take to deal with one of those matters? We must take a look at the environment in which we have been placed, and read the media statements released by Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich. She states — It was also revealed that 40 per cent of complaints received over the past year were complaints made against Ministers’ offices. That is quite right, but again I draw attention to the quality of those complaints. I advise members present to read the recent decision of the Office of the Information Commissioner, reference number D0172009, which is online. It was a complaint about the refusal of my office to deal with a request from Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich on 6 March 2009, which read — “I wish to gain access to the following information from the 23rd September 2008: · Your diary · Your daily itinerary documents; and · Documents detailing the expenditure on your Ministerial credit card”. Mr E.S. Ripper : We always gave out that information when in government, but you refused. Open, accountable, honest—not. Mr C.C. PORTER : It is interesting, is it not? In those circumstances, I was happy to narrow the request. I gave advice back to Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich’s office to narrow that request, but that was the subject of a complaint. The Information Commissioner made some statements about that complaint. In a preliminary opinion, for which he sought response, he stated — · It is reasonable to expect that, as a former Minister of the State Government, the complainant is well versed in the amount of work involved in dealing with her application and the ways in which it could be reduced to a manageable level. Both as the recipient of FOI access applications and as an FOI access applicant, the complainant has considerable experience and knowledge in the workings of the FOI Act. · The assistance provided by the Minister’s office to change the scope of the complainant’s access application was reasonable in the circumstances. · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work — The SPEAKER : Some members might not necessarily want to hear from the Attorney General. The question has been asked, and he is giving the answer. I formally call to order for the first time the member for Collie-Preston and the member for Albany. Mr C.C. PORTER : I think I was at the point at which I was outlining the Information Commissioner’s preliminary views, to which a response was sought. One of those preliminary views was — · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work involved in dealing with the application. To those preliminary views, Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich got a chance to respond, and this was her response. Do members want to hear the response? Government members: Yes! Mr C.C. PORTER : Okay. The response to the Information Commissioner was as follows — · The complainant’s position as a former Minister cannot be taken into account in dealing with any access applications made by her, given that her duties as a Shadow Minister and a Member of the Western Australian Parliament render her too busy to deal with each individual access application personally. The daily business of the access application is the responsibility of the complainant’s research officer who has not previously worked in a Ministerial office and who is not aware of the amount of work that an access application would entail. · The Minister took advantage — This is the submission that was sent back to the Information Commissioner — · The Minister took advantage of the lack of knowledge of the complainant’s research officer by not supplying enough information to enable her to make an educated decision on the scope of the access application and by not providing enough advice to enable her to make the correct decision. I took advantage of a person I did not know existed! A person cannot create the problem and then complain about it. I will be meeting with the Information Commissioner to see what we can do to expedite the procedures. However, complaints of this nature are absolutely ridiculous. Point of Order Mr J.C. KOBELKE : Mr Speaker, I appreciate that under standing orders question time is something that is totally within your control, but I think it is appropriate that I put to you that the Attorney General taking more than nine minutes to answer a dorothy dixer could perhaps be considered an abuse of question time, or it might simply be that the Attorney General is under the misapprehension that, as a lawyer, he gets paid for the amount of time he wastes. The SPEAKER : Members will have observed in previous question times that I am quite prepared to implement a range of measures, such as to sit members down or to shorten question time. I appreciate what the member for Balcatta said.
Mr C.C. PORTER : The Leader of the Opposition raises a very good point, because the quality of the applications and the quality of the complaints is precisely the nub of this issue. The first thing to do is to look at the context of this matter. I have undertaken a bit of analysis of the applications and complaints that have been made between 2008-09 and 2007-08; that is, a comparison between two years. The number of formal complaints has increased from 102 to 180, which is a 66 per cent increase. That is significant by any measure, but where are the complaints coming from? The number of complaints from individual members of the public has actually decreased by seven per cent, so they are obviously happy with the job government is doing on FOI applications. Mr T.G. Stephens : The opposition is doing it on behalf of the public. Mr C.C. PORTER : Is that right? That is an interesting supposition, and I will get to that. The number of complaints from the media has halved. The media are obviously very happy with our responsiveness. Where are the complaints coming from? Complaints from members of Parliament have increased by 2 000 per cent. To be fair, it is a brilliant political strategy—bombard the Information Commissioner with spurious applications and complain about every refusal, and those complaints must all be dealt with, no matter how mindless they are, and then make a press release complaining that there is a backlog. This goes to the issue of the quality of the applications. I will provide an example. This is not the example of a parliamentary question that I had recently about what sort of on-hold telephone music our offices play. That was a savagely insightful question! Mr E.S. Ripper : It is if you break the law and don’t pay the copyright fees. You are the Attorney General. Mr C.C. PORTER : Does the Leader of the Opposition have any evidence that there has been — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order! Members on my left might have suggestions about how the Attorney General should be answering this question. My preference at this point is to hear from the Attorney General. Mr C.C. PORTER : I refer to request 20080068. The request was for all documents and correspondence within the Premier’s office requested and received from agencies other than the Department of Industry and Resources and the Department of the Premier and Cabinet. That really narrows it down. How long would it take to deal with one of those matters? We must take a look at the environment in which we have been placed, and read the media statements released by Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich. She states — It was also revealed that 40 per cent of complaints received over the past year were complaints made against Ministers’ offices. That is quite right, but again I draw attention to the quality of those complaints. I advise members present to read the recent decision of the Office of the Information Commissioner, reference number D0172009, which is online. It was a complaint about the refusal of my office to deal with a request from Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich on 6 March 2009, which read — “I wish to gain access to the following information from the 23rd September 2008: · Your diary · Your daily itinerary documents; and · Documents detailing the expenditure on your Ministerial credit card”. Mr E.S. Ripper : We always gave out that information when in government, but you refused. Open, accountable, honest—not. Mr C.C. PORTER : It is interesting, is it not? In those circumstances, I was happy to narrow the request. I gave advice back to Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich’s office to narrow that request, but that was the subject of a complaint. The Information Commissioner made some statements about that complaint. In a preliminary opinion, for which he sought response, he stated — · It is reasonable to expect that, as a former Minister of the State Government, the complainant is well versed in the amount of work involved in dealing with her application and the ways in which it could be reduced to a manageable level. Both as the recipient of FOI access applications and as an FOI access applicant, the complainant has considerable experience and knowledge in the workings of the FOI Act. · The assistance provided by the Minister’s office to change the scope of the complainant’s access application was reasonable in the circumstances. · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work — The SPEAKER : Some members might not necessarily want to hear from the Attorney General. The question has been asked, and he is giving the answer. I formally call to order for the first time the member for Collie-Preston and the member for Albany. Mr C.C. PORTER : I think I was at the point at which I was outlining the Information Commissioner’s preliminary views, to which a response was sought. One of those preliminary views was — · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work involved in dealing with the application. To those preliminary views, Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich got a chance to respond, and this was her response. Do members want to hear the response? Government members: Yes! Mr C.C. PORTER : Okay. The response to the Information Commissioner was as follows — · The complainant’s position as a former Minister cannot be taken into account in dealing with any access applications made by her, given that her duties as a Shadow Minister and a Member of the Western Australian Parliament render her too busy to deal with each individual access application personally. The daily business of the access application is the responsibility of the complainant’s research officer who has not previously worked in a Ministerial office and who is not aware of the amount of work that an access application would entail. · The Minister took advantage — This is the submission that was sent back to the Information Commissioner — · The Minister took advantage of the lack of knowledge of the complainant’s research officer by not supplying enough information to enable her to make an educated decision on the scope of the access application and by not providing enough advice to enable her to make the correct decision. I took advantage of a person I did not know existed! A person cannot create the problem and then complain about it. I will be meeting with the Information Commissioner to see what we can do to expedite the procedures. However, complaints of this nature are absolutely ridiculous. Point of Order Mr J.C. KOBELKE : Mr Speaker, I appreciate that under standing orders question time is something that is totally within your control, but I think it is appropriate that I put to you that the Attorney General taking more than nine minutes to answer a dorothy dixer could perhaps be considered an abuse of question time, or it might simply be that the Attorney General is under the misapprehension that, as a lawyer, he gets paid for the amount of time he wastes. The SPEAKER : Members will have observed in previous question times that I am quite prepared to implement a range of measures, such as to sit members down or to shorten question time. I appreciate what the member for Balcatta said.
The first thing to do is to look at the context of this matter. I have undertaken a bit of analysis of the applications and complaints that have been made between 2008-09 and 2007-08; that is, a comparison between two years. The number of formal complaints has increased from 102 to 180, which is a 66 per cent increase. That is significant by any measure, but where are the complaints coming from? The number of complaints from individual members of the public has actually decreased by seven per cent, so they are obviously happy with the job government is doing on FOI applications. Mr T.G. Stephens : The opposition is doing it on behalf of the public. Mr C.C. PORTER : Is that right? That is an interesting supposition, and I will get to that. The number of complaints from the media has halved. The media are obviously very happy with our responsiveness. Where are the complaints coming from? Complaints from members of Parliament have increased by 2 000 per cent. To be fair, it is a brilliant political strategy—bombard the Information Commissioner with spurious applications and complain about every refusal, and those complaints must all be dealt with, no matter how mindless they are, and then make a press release complaining that there is a backlog. This goes to the issue of the quality of the applications. I will provide an example. This is not the example of a parliamentary question that I had recently about what sort of on-hold telephone music our offices play. That was a savagely insightful question! Mr E.S. Ripper : It is if you break the law and don’t pay the copyright fees. You are the Attorney General. Mr C.C. PORTER : Does the Leader of the Opposition have any evidence that there has been — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order! Members on my left might have suggestions about how the Attorney General should be answering this question. My preference at this point is to hear from the Attorney General. Mr C.C. PORTER : I refer to request 20080068. The request was for all documents and correspondence within the Premier’s office requested and received from agencies other than the Department of Industry and Resources and the Department of the Premier and Cabinet. That really narrows it down. How long would it take to deal with one of those matters? We must take a look at the environment in which we have been placed, and read the media statements released by Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich. She states — It was also revealed that 40 per cent of complaints received over the past year were complaints made against Ministers’ offices. That is quite right, but again I draw attention to the quality of those complaints. I advise members present to read the recent decision of the Office of the Information Commissioner, reference number D0172009, which is online. It was a complaint about the refusal of my office to deal with a request from Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich on 6 March 2009, which read — “I wish to gain access to the following information from the 23rd September 2008: · Your diary · Your daily itinerary documents; and · Documents detailing the expenditure on your Ministerial credit card”. Mr E.S. Ripper : We always gave out that information when in government, but you refused. Open, accountable, honest—not. Mr C.C. PORTER : It is interesting, is it not? In those circumstances, I was happy to narrow the request. I gave advice back to Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich’s office to narrow that request, but that was the subject of a complaint. The Information Commissioner made some statements about that complaint. In a preliminary opinion, for which he sought response, he stated — · It is reasonable to expect that, as a former Minister of the State Government, the complainant is well versed in the amount of work involved in dealing with her application and the ways in which it could be reduced to a manageable level. Both as the recipient of FOI access applications and as an FOI access applicant, the complainant has considerable experience and knowledge in the workings of the FOI Act. · The assistance provided by the Minister’s office to change the scope of the complainant’s access application was reasonable in the circumstances. · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work — The SPEAKER : Some members might not necessarily want to hear from the Attorney General. The question has been asked, and he is giving the answer. I formally call to order for the first time the member for Collie-Preston and the member for Albany. Mr C.C. PORTER : I think I was at the point at which I was outlining the Information Commissioner’s preliminary views, to which a response was sought. One of those preliminary views was — · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work involved in dealing with the application. To those preliminary views, Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich got a chance to respond, and this was her response. Do members want to hear the response? Government members: Yes! Mr C.C. PORTER : Okay. The response to the Information Commissioner was as follows — · The complainant’s position as a former Minister cannot be taken into account in dealing with any access applications made by her, given that her duties as a Shadow Minister and a Member of the Western Australian Parliament render her too busy to deal with each individual access application personally. The daily business of the access application is the responsibility of the complainant’s research officer who has not previously worked in a Ministerial office and who is not aware of the amount of work that an access application would entail. · The Minister took advantage — This is the submission that was sent back to the Information Commissioner — · The Minister took advantage of the lack of knowledge of the complainant’s research officer by not supplying enough information to enable her to make an educated decision on the scope of the access application and by not providing enough advice to enable her to make the correct decision. I took advantage of a person I did not know existed! A person cannot create the problem and then complain about it. I will be meeting with the Information Commissioner to see what we can do to expedite the procedures. However, complaints of this nature are absolutely ridiculous. Point of Order Mr J.C. KOBELKE : Mr Speaker, I appreciate that under standing orders question time is something that is totally within your control, but I think it is appropriate that I put to you that the Attorney General taking more than nine minutes to answer a dorothy dixer could perhaps be considered an abuse of question time, or it might simply be that the Attorney General is under the misapprehension that, as a lawyer, he gets paid for the amount of time he wastes. The SPEAKER : Members will have observed in previous question times that I am quite prepared to implement a range of measures, such as to sit members down or to shorten question time. I appreciate what the member for Balcatta said.
Mr T.G. Stephens : The opposition is doing it on behalf of the public. Mr C.C. PORTER : Is that right? That is an interesting supposition, and I will get to that. The number of complaints from the media has halved. The media are obviously very happy with our responsiveness. Where are the complaints coming from? Complaints from members of Parliament have increased by 2 000 per cent. To be fair, it is a brilliant political strategy—bombard the Information Commissioner with spurious applications and complain about every refusal, and those complaints must all be dealt with, no matter how mindless they are, and then make a press release complaining that there is a backlog. This goes to the issue of the quality of the applications. I will provide an example. This is not the example of a parliamentary question that I had recently about what sort of on-hold telephone music our offices play. That was a savagely insightful question! Mr E.S. Ripper : It is if you break the law and don’t pay the copyright fees. You are the Attorney General. Mr C.C. PORTER : Does the Leader of the Opposition have any evidence that there has been — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order! Members on my left might have suggestions about how the Attorney General should be answering this question. My preference at this point is to hear from the Attorney General. Mr C.C. PORTER : I refer to request 20080068. The request was for all documents and correspondence within the Premier’s office requested and received from agencies other than the Department of Industry and Resources and the Department of the Premier and Cabinet. That really narrows it down. How long would it take to deal with one of those matters? We must take a look at the environment in which we have been placed, and read the media statements released by Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich. She states — It was also revealed that 40 per cent of complaints received over the past year were complaints made against Ministers’ offices. That is quite right, but again I draw attention to the quality of those complaints. I advise members present to read the recent decision of the Office of the Information Commissioner, reference number D0172009, which is online. It was a complaint about the refusal of my office to deal with a request from Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich on 6 March 2009, which read — “I wish to gain access to the following information from the 23rd September 2008: · Your diary · Your daily itinerary documents; and · Documents detailing the expenditure on your Ministerial credit card”. Mr E.S. Ripper : We always gave out that information when in government, but you refused. Open, accountable, honest—not. Mr C.C. PORTER : It is interesting, is it not? In those circumstances, I was happy to narrow the request. I gave advice back to Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich’s office to narrow that request, but that was the subject of a complaint. The Information Commissioner made some statements about that complaint. In a preliminary opinion, for which he sought response, he stated — · It is reasonable to expect that, as a former Minister of the State Government, the complainant is well versed in the amount of work involved in dealing with her application and the ways in which it could be reduced to a manageable level. Both as the recipient of FOI access applications and as an FOI access applicant, the complainant has considerable experience and knowledge in the workings of the FOI Act. · The assistance provided by the Minister’s office to change the scope of the complainant’s access application was reasonable in the circumstances. · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work — The SPEAKER : Some members might not necessarily want to hear from the Attorney General. The question has been asked, and he is giving the answer. I formally call to order for the first time the member for Collie-Preston and the member for Albany. Mr C.C. PORTER : I think I was at the point at which I was outlining the Information Commissioner’s preliminary views, to which a response was sought. One of those preliminary views was — · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work involved in dealing with the application. To those preliminary views, Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich got a chance to respond, and this was her response. Do members want to hear the response? Government members: Yes! Mr C.C. PORTER : Okay. The response to the Information Commissioner was as follows — · The complainant’s position as a former Minister cannot be taken into account in dealing with any access applications made by her, given that her duties as a Shadow Minister and a Member of the Western Australian Parliament render her too busy to deal with each individual access application personally. The daily business of the access application is the responsibility of the complainant’s research officer who has not previously worked in a Ministerial office and who is not aware of the amount of work that an access application would entail. · The Minister took advantage — This is the submission that was sent back to the Information Commissioner — · The Minister took advantage of the lack of knowledge of the complainant’s research officer by not supplying enough information to enable her to make an educated decision on the scope of the access application and by not providing enough advice to enable her to make the correct decision. I took advantage of a person I did not know existed! A person cannot create the problem and then complain about it. I will be meeting with the Information Commissioner to see what we can do to expedite the procedures. However, complaints of this nature are absolutely ridiculous. Point of Order Mr J.C. KOBELKE : Mr Speaker, I appreciate that under standing orders question time is something that is totally within your control, but I think it is appropriate that I put to you that the Attorney General taking more than nine minutes to answer a dorothy dixer could perhaps be considered an abuse of question time, or it might simply be that the Attorney General is under the misapprehension that, as a lawyer, he gets paid for the amount of time he wastes. The SPEAKER : Members will have observed in previous question times that I am quite prepared to implement a range of measures, such as to sit members down or to shorten question time. I appreciate what the member for Balcatta said.
Mr C.C. PORTER : Is that right? That is an interesting supposition, and I will get to that. The number of complaints from the media has halved. The media are obviously very happy with our responsiveness. Where are the complaints coming from? Complaints from members of Parliament have increased by 2 000 per cent. To be fair, it is a brilliant political strategy—bombard the Information Commissioner with spurious applications and complain about every refusal, and those complaints must all be dealt with, no matter how mindless they are, and then make a press release complaining that there is a backlog. This goes to the issue of the quality of the applications. I will provide an example. This is not the example of a parliamentary question that I had recently about what sort of on-hold telephone music our offices play. That was a savagely insightful question! Mr E.S. Ripper : It is if you break the law and don’t pay the copyright fees. You are the Attorney General. Mr C.C. PORTER : Does the Leader of the Opposition have any evidence that there has been — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order! Members on my left might have suggestions about how the Attorney General should be answering this question. My preference at this point is to hear from the Attorney General. Mr C.C. PORTER : I refer to request 20080068. The request was for all documents and correspondence within the Premier’s office requested and received from agencies other than the Department of Industry and Resources and the Department of the Premier and Cabinet. That really narrows it down. How long would it take to deal with one of those matters? We must take a look at the environment in which we have been placed, and read the media statements released by Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich. She states — It was also revealed that 40 per cent of complaints received over the past year were complaints made against Ministers’ offices. That is quite right, but again I draw attention to the quality of those complaints. I advise members present to read the recent decision of the Office of the Information Commissioner, reference number D0172009, which is online. It was a complaint about the refusal of my office to deal with a request from Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich on 6 March 2009, which read — “I wish to gain access to the following information from the 23rd September 2008: · Your diary · Your daily itinerary documents; and · Documents detailing the expenditure on your Ministerial credit card”. Mr E.S. Ripper : We always gave out that information when in government, but you refused. Open, accountable, honest—not. Mr C.C. PORTER : It is interesting, is it not? In those circumstances, I was happy to narrow the request. I gave advice back to Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich’s office to narrow that request, but that was the subject of a complaint. The Information Commissioner made some statements about that complaint. In a preliminary opinion, for which he sought response, he stated — · It is reasonable to expect that, as a former Minister of the State Government, the complainant is well versed in the amount of work involved in dealing with her application and the ways in which it could be reduced to a manageable level. Both as the recipient of FOI access applications and as an FOI access applicant, the complainant has considerable experience and knowledge in the workings of the FOI Act. · The assistance provided by the Minister’s office to change the scope of the complainant’s access application was reasonable in the circumstances. · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work — The SPEAKER : Some members might not necessarily want to hear from the Attorney General. The question has been asked, and he is giving the answer. I formally call to order for the first time the member for Collie-Preston and the member for Albany. Mr C.C. PORTER : I think I was at the point at which I was outlining the Information Commissioner’s preliminary views, to which a response was sought. One of those preliminary views was — · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work involved in dealing with the application. To those preliminary views, Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich got a chance to respond, and this was her response. Do members want to hear the response? Government members: Yes! Mr C.C. PORTER : Okay. The response to the Information Commissioner was as follows — · The complainant’s position as a former Minister cannot be taken into account in dealing with any access applications made by her, given that her duties as a Shadow Minister and a Member of the Western Australian Parliament render her too busy to deal with each individual access application personally. The daily business of the access application is the responsibility of the complainant’s research officer who has not previously worked in a Ministerial office and who is not aware of the amount of work that an access application would entail. · The Minister took advantage — This is the submission that was sent back to the Information Commissioner — · The Minister took advantage of the lack of knowledge of the complainant’s research officer by not supplying enough information to enable her to make an educated decision on the scope of the access application and by not providing enough advice to enable her to make the correct decision. I took advantage of a person I did not know existed! A person cannot create the problem and then complain about it. I will be meeting with the Information Commissioner to see what we can do to expedite the procedures. However, complaints of this nature are absolutely ridiculous. Point of Order Mr J.C. KOBELKE : Mr Speaker, I appreciate that under standing orders question time is something that is totally within your control, but I think it is appropriate that I put to you that the Attorney General taking more than nine minutes to answer a dorothy dixer could perhaps be considered an abuse of question time, or it might simply be that the Attorney General is under the misapprehension that, as a lawyer, he gets paid for the amount of time he wastes. The SPEAKER : Members will have observed in previous question times that I am quite prepared to implement a range of measures, such as to sit members down or to shorten question time. I appreciate what the member for Balcatta said.
The number of complaints from the media has halved. The media are obviously very happy with our responsiveness. Where are the complaints coming from? Complaints from members of Parliament have increased by 2 000 per cent. To be fair, it is a brilliant political strategy—bombard the Information Commissioner with spurious applications and complain about every refusal, and those complaints must all be dealt with, no matter how mindless they are, and then make a press release complaining that there is a backlog. This goes to the issue of the quality of the applications. I will provide an example. This is not the example of a parliamentary question that I had recently about what sort of on-hold telephone music our offices play. That was a savagely insightful question! Mr E.S. Ripper : It is if you break the law and don’t pay the copyright fees. You are the Attorney General. Mr C.C. PORTER : Does the Leader of the Opposition have any evidence that there has been — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order! Members on my left might have suggestions about how the Attorney General should be answering this question. My preference at this point is to hear from the Attorney General. Mr C.C. PORTER : I refer to request 20080068. The request was for all documents and correspondence within the Premier’s office requested and received from agencies other than the Department of Industry and Resources and the Department of the Premier and Cabinet. That really narrows it down. How long would it take to deal with one of those matters? We must take a look at the environment in which we have been placed, and read the media statements released by Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich. She states — It was also revealed that 40 per cent of complaints received over the past year were complaints made against Ministers’ offices. That is quite right, but again I draw attention to the quality of those complaints. I advise members present to read the recent decision of the Office of the Information Commissioner, reference number D0172009, which is online. It was a complaint about the refusal of my office to deal with a request from Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich on 6 March 2009, which read — “I wish to gain access to the following information from the 23rd September 2008: · Your diary · Your daily itinerary documents; and · Documents detailing the expenditure on your Ministerial credit card”. Mr E.S. Ripper : We always gave out that information when in government, but you refused. Open, accountable, honest—not. Mr C.C. PORTER : It is interesting, is it not? In those circumstances, I was happy to narrow the request. I gave advice back to Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich’s office to narrow that request, but that was the subject of a complaint. The Information Commissioner made some statements about that complaint. In a preliminary opinion, for which he sought response, he stated — · It is reasonable to expect that, as a former Minister of the State Government, the complainant is well versed in the amount of work involved in dealing with her application and the ways in which it could be reduced to a manageable level. Both as the recipient of FOI access applications and as an FOI access applicant, the complainant has considerable experience and knowledge in the workings of the FOI Act. · The assistance provided by the Minister’s office to change the scope of the complainant’s access application was reasonable in the circumstances. · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work — The SPEAKER : Some members might not necessarily want to hear from the Attorney General. The question has been asked, and he is giving the answer. I formally call to order for the first time the member for Collie-Preston and the member for Albany. Mr C.C. PORTER : I think I was at the point at which I was outlining the Information Commissioner’s preliminary views, to which a response was sought. One of those preliminary views was — · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work involved in dealing with the application. To those preliminary views, Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich got a chance to respond, and this was her response. Do members want to hear the response? Government members: Yes! Mr C.C. PORTER : Okay. The response to the Information Commissioner was as follows — · The complainant’s position as a former Minister cannot be taken into account in dealing with any access applications made by her, given that her duties as a Shadow Minister and a Member of the Western Australian Parliament render her too busy to deal with each individual access application personally. The daily business of the access application is the responsibility of the complainant’s research officer who has not previously worked in a Ministerial office and who is not aware of the amount of work that an access application would entail. · The Minister took advantage — This is the submission that was sent back to the Information Commissioner — · The Minister took advantage of the lack of knowledge of the complainant’s research officer by not supplying enough information to enable her to make an educated decision on the scope of the access application and by not providing enough advice to enable her to make the correct decision. I took advantage of a person I did not know existed! A person cannot create the problem and then complain about it. I will be meeting with the Information Commissioner to see what we can do to expedite the procedures. However, complaints of this nature are absolutely ridiculous. Point of Order Mr J.C. KOBELKE : Mr Speaker, I appreciate that under standing orders question time is something that is totally within your control, but I think it is appropriate that I put to you that the Attorney General taking more than nine minutes to answer a dorothy dixer could perhaps be considered an abuse of question time, or it might simply be that the Attorney General is under the misapprehension that, as a lawyer, he gets paid for the amount of time he wastes. The SPEAKER : Members will have observed in previous question times that I am quite prepared to implement a range of measures, such as to sit members down or to shorten question time. I appreciate what the member for Balcatta said.
Mr E.S. Ripper : It is if you break the law and don’t pay the copyright fees. You are the Attorney General. Mr C.C. PORTER : Does the Leader of the Opposition have any evidence that there has been — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order! Members on my left might have suggestions about how the Attorney General should be answering this question. My preference at this point is to hear from the Attorney General. Mr C.C. PORTER : I refer to request 20080068. The request was for all documents and correspondence within the Premier’s office requested and received from agencies other than the Department of Industry and Resources and the Department of the Premier and Cabinet. That really narrows it down. How long would it take to deal with one of those matters? We must take a look at the environment in which we have been placed, and read the media statements released by Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich. She states — It was also revealed that 40 per cent of complaints received over the past year were complaints made against Ministers’ offices. That is quite right, but again I draw attention to the quality of those complaints. I advise members present to read the recent decision of the Office of the Information Commissioner, reference number D0172009, which is online. It was a complaint about the refusal of my office to deal with a request from Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich on 6 March 2009, which read — “I wish to gain access to the following information from the 23rd September 2008: · Your diary · Your daily itinerary documents; and · Documents detailing the expenditure on your Ministerial credit card”. Mr E.S. Ripper : We always gave out that information when in government, but you refused. Open, accountable, honest—not. Mr C.C. PORTER : It is interesting, is it not? In those circumstances, I was happy to narrow the request. I gave advice back to Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich’s office to narrow that request, but that was the subject of a complaint. The Information Commissioner made some statements about that complaint. In a preliminary opinion, for which he sought response, he stated — · It is reasonable to expect that, as a former Minister of the State Government, the complainant is well versed in the amount of work involved in dealing with her application and the ways in which it could be reduced to a manageable level. Both as the recipient of FOI access applications and as an FOI access applicant, the complainant has considerable experience and knowledge in the workings of the FOI Act. · The assistance provided by the Minister’s office to change the scope of the complainant’s access application was reasonable in the circumstances. · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work — The SPEAKER : Some members might not necessarily want to hear from the Attorney General. The question has been asked, and he is giving the answer. I formally call to order for the first time the member for Collie-Preston and the member for Albany. Mr C.C. PORTER : I think I was at the point at which I was outlining the Information Commissioner’s preliminary views, to which a response was sought. One of those preliminary views was — · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work involved in dealing with the application. To those preliminary views, Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich got a chance to respond, and this was her response. Do members want to hear the response? Government members: Yes! Mr C.C. PORTER : Okay. The response to the Information Commissioner was as follows — · The complainant’s position as a former Minister cannot be taken into account in dealing with any access applications made by her, given that her duties as a Shadow Minister and a Member of the Western Australian Parliament render her too busy to deal with each individual access application personally. The daily business of the access application is the responsibility of the complainant’s research officer who has not previously worked in a Ministerial office and who is not aware of the amount of work that an access application would entail. · The Minister took advantage — This is the submission that was sent back to the Information Commissioner — · The Minister took advantage of the lack of knowledge of the complainant’s research officer by not supplying enough information to enable her to make an educated decision on the scope of the access application and by not providing enough advice to enable her to make the correct decision. I took advantage of a person I did not know existed! A person cannot create the problem and then complain about it. I will be meeting with the Information Commissioner to see what we can do to expedite the procedures. However, complaints of this nature are absolutely ridiculous. Point of Order Mr J.C. KOBELKE : Mr Speaker, I appreciate that under standing orders question time is something that is totally within your control, but I think it is appropriate that I put to you that the Attorney General taking more than nine minutes to answer a dorothy dixer could perhaps be considered an abuse of question time, or it might simply be that the Attorney General is under the misapprehension that, as a lawyer, he gets paid for the amount of time he wastes. The SPEAKER : Members will have observed in previous question times that I am quite prepared to implement a range of measures, such as to sit members down or to shorten question time. I appreciate what the member for Balcatta said.
Mr C.C. PORTER : Does the Leader of the Opposition have any evidence that there has been — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order! Members on my left might have suggestions about how the Attorney General should be answering this question. My preference at this point is to hear from the Attorney General. Mr C.C. PORTER : I refer to request 20080068. The request was for all documents and correspondence within the Premier’s office requested and received from agencies other than the Department of Industry and Resources and the Department of the Premier and Cabinet. That really narrows it down. How long would it take to deal with one of those matters? We must take a look at the environment in which we have been placed, and read the media statements released by Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich. She states — It was also revealed that 40 per cent of complaints received over the past year were complaints made against Ministers’ offices. That is quite right, but again I draw attention to the quality of those complaints. I advise members present to read the recent decision of the Office of the Information Commissioner, reference number D0172009, which is online. It was a complaint about the refusal of my office to deal with a request from Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich on 6 March 2009, which read — “I wish to gain access to the following information from the 23rd September 2008: · Your diary · Your daily itinerary documents; and · Documents detailing the expenditure on your Ministerial credit card”. Mr E.S. Ripper : We always gave out that information when in government, but you refused. Open, accountable, honest—not. Mr C.C. PORTER : It is interesting, is it not? In those circumstances, I was happy to narrow the request. I gave advice back to Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich’s office to narrow that request, but that was the subject of a complaint. The Information Commissioner made some statements about that complaint. In a preliminary opinion, for which he sought response, he stated — · It is reasonable to expect that, as a former Minister of the State Government, the complainant is well versed in the amount of work involved in dealing with her application and the ways in which it could be reduced to a manageable level. Both as the recipient of FOI access applications and as an FOI access applicant, the complainant has considerable experience and knowledge in the workings of the FOI Act. · The assistance provided by the Minister’s office to change the scope of the complainant’s access application was reasonable in the circumstances. · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work — The SPEAKER : Some members might not necessarily want to hear from the Attorney General. The question has been asked, and he is giving the answer. I formally call to order for the first time the member for Collie-Preston and the member for Albany. Mr C.C. PORTER : I think I was at the point at which I was outlining the Information Commissioner’s preliminary views, to which a response was sought. One of those preliminary views was — · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work involved in dealing with the application. To those preliminary views, Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich got a chance to respond, and this was her response. Do members want to hear the response? Government members: Yes! Mr C.C. PORTER : Okay. The response to the Information Commissioner was as follows — · The complainant’s position as a former Minister cannot be taken into account in dealing with any access applications made by her, given that her duties as a Shadow Minister and a Member of the Western Australian Parliament render her too busy to deal with each individual access application personally. The daily business of the access application is the responsibility of the complainant’s research officer who has not previously worked in a Ministerial office and who is not aware of the amount of work that an access application would entail. · The Minister took advantage — This is the submission that was sent back to the Information Commissioner — · The Minister took advantage of the lack of knowledge of the complainant’s research officer by not supplying enough information to enable her to make an educated decision on the scope of the access application and by not providing enough advice to enable her to make the correct decision. I took advantage of a person I did not know existed! A person cannot create the problem and then complain about it. I will be meeting with the Information Commissioner to see what we can do to expedite the procedures. However, complaints of this nature are absolutely ridiculous. Point of Order Mr J.C. KOBELKE : Mr Speaker, I appreciate that under standing orders question time is something that is totally within your control, but I think it is appropriate that I put to you that the Attorney General taking more than nine minutes to answer a dorothy dixer could perhaps be considered an abuse of question time, or it might simply be that the Attorney General is under the misapprehension that, as a lawyer, he gets paid for the amount of time he wastes. The SPEAKER : Members will have observed in previous question times that I am quite prepared to implement a range of measures, such as to sit members down or to shorten question time. I appreciate what the member for Balcatta said.
Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order! Members on my left might have suggestions about how the Attorney General should be answering this question. My preference at this point is to hear from the Attorney General. Mr C.C. PORTER : I refer to request 20080068. The request was for all documents and correspondence within the Premier’s office requested and received from agencies other than the Department of Industry and Resources and the Department of the Premier and Cabinet. That really narrows it down. How long would it take to deal with one of those matters? We must take a look at the environment in which we have been placed, and read the media statements released by Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich. She states — It was also revealed that 40 per cent of complaints received over the past year were complaints made against Ministers’ offices. That is quite right, but again I draw attention to the quality of those complaints. I advise members present to read the recent decision of the Office of the Information Commissioner, reference number D0172009, which is online. It was a complaint about the refusal of my office to deal with a request from Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich on 6 March 2009, which read — “I wish to gain access to the following information from the 23rd September 2008: · Your diary · Your daily itinerary documents; and · Documents detailing the expenditure on your Ministerial credit card”. Mr E.S. Ripper : We always gave out that information when in government, but you refused. Open, accountable, honest—not. Mr C.C. PORTER : It is interesting, is it not? In those circumstances, I was happy to narrow the request. I gave advice back to Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich’s office to narrow that request, but that was the subject of a complaint. The Information Commissioner made some statements about that complaint. In a preliminary opinion, for which he sought response, he stated — · It is reasonable to expect that, as a former Minister of the State Government, the complainant is well versed in the amount of work involved in dealing with her application and the ways in which it could be reduced to a manageable level. Both as the recipient of FOI access applications and as an FOI access applicant, the complainant has considerable experience and knowledge in the workings of the FOI Act. · The assistance provided by the Minister’s office to change the scope of the complainant’s access application was reasonable in the circumstances. · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work — The SPEAKER : Some members might not necessarily want to hear from the Attorney General. The question has been asked, and he is giving the answer. I formally call to order for the first time the member for Collie-Preston and the member for Albany. Mr C.C. PORTER : I think I was at the point at which I was outlining the Information Commissioner’s preliminary views, to which a response was sought. One of those preliminary views was — · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work involved in dealing with the application. To those preliminary views, Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich got a chance to respond, and this was her response. Do members want to hear the response? Government members: Yes! Mr C.C. PORTER : Okay. The response to the Information Commissioner was as follows — · The complainant’s position as a former Minister cannot be taken into account in dealing with any access applications made by her, given that her duties as a Shadow Minister and a Member of the Western Australian Parliament render her too busy to deal with each individual access application personally. The daily business of the access application is the responsibility of the complainant’s research officer who has not previously worked in a Ministerial office and who is not aware of the amount of work that an access application would entail. · The Minister took advantage — This is the submission that was sent back to the Information Commissioner — · The Minister took advantage of the lack of knowledge of the complainant’s research officer by not supplying enough information to enable her to make an educated decision on the scope of the access application and by not providing enough advice to enable her to make the correct decision. I took advantage of a person I did not know existed! A person cannot create the problem and then complain about it. I will be meeting with the Information Commissioner to see what we can do to expedite the procedures. However, complaints of this nature are absolutely ridiculous. Point of Order Mr J.C. KOBELKE : Mr Speaker, I appreciate that under standing orders question time is something that is totally within your control, but I think it is appropriate that I put to you that the Attorney General taking more than nine minutes to answer a dorothy dixer could perhaps be considered an abuse of question time, or it might simply be that the Attorney General is under the misapprehension that, as a lawyer, he gets paid for the amount of time he wastes. The SPEAKER : Members will have observed in previous question times that I am quite prepared to implement a range of measures, such as to sit members down or to shorten question time. I appreciate what the member for Balcatta said.
The SPEAKER : Order! Members on my left might have suggestions about how the Attorney General should be answering this question. My preference at this point is to hear from the Attorney General. Mr C.C. PORTER : I refer to request 20080068. The request was for all documents and correspondence within the Premier’s office requested and received from agencies other than the Department of Industry and Resources and the Department of the Premier and Cabinet. That really narrows it down. How long would it take to deal with one of those matters? We must take a look at the environment in which we have been placed, and read the media statements released by Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich. She states — It was also revealed that 40 per cent of complaints received over the past year were complaints made against Ministers’ offices. That is quite right, but again I draw attention to the quality of those complaints. I advise members present to read the recent decision of the Office of the Information Commissioner, reference number D0172009, which is online. It was a complaint about the refusal of my office to deal with a request from Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich on 6 March 2009, which read — “I wish to gain access to the following information from the 23rd September 2008: · Your diary · Your daily itinerary documents; and · Documents detailing the expenditure on your Ministerial credit card”. Mr E.S. Ripper : We always gave out that information when in government, but you refused. Open, accountable, honest—not. Mr C.C. PORTER : It is interesting, is it not? In those circumstances, I was happy to narrow the request. I gave advice back to Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich’s office to narrow that request, but that was the subject of a complaint. The Information Commissioner made some statements about that complaint. In a preliminary opinion, for which he sought response, he stated — · It is reasonable to expect that, as a former Minister of the State Government, the complainant is well versed in the amount of work involved in dealing with her application and the ways in which it could be reduced to a manageable level. Both as the recipient of FOI access applications and as an FOI access applicant, the complainant has considerable experience and knowledge in the workings of the FOI Act. · The assistance provided by the Minister’s office to change the scope of the complainant’s access application was reasonable in the circumstances. · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work — The SPEAKER : Some members might not necessarily want to hear from the Attorney General. The question has been asked, and he is giving the answer. I formally call to order for the first time the member for Collie-Preston and the member for Albany. Mr C.C. PORTER : I think I was at the point at which I was outlining the Information Commissioner’s preliminary views, to which a response was sought. One of those preliminary views was — · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work involved in dealing with the application. To those preliminary views, Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich got a chance to respond, and this was her response. Do members want to hear the response? Government members: Yes! Mr C.C. PORTER : Okay. The response to the Information Commissioner was as follows — · The complainant’s position as a former Minister cannot be taken into account in dealing with any access applications made by her, given that her duties as a Shadow Minister and a Member of the Western Australian Parliament render her too busy to deal with each individual access application personally. The daily business of the access application is the responsibility of the complainant’s research officer who has not previously worked in a Ministerial office and who is not aware of the amount of work that an access application would entail. · The Minister took advantage — This is the submission that was sent back to the Information Commissioner — · The Minister took advantage of the lack of knowledge of the complainant’s research officer by not supplying enough information to enable her to make an educated decision on the scope of the access application and by not providing enough advice to enable her to make the correct decision. I took advantage of a person I did not know existed! A person cannot create the problem and then complain about it. I will be meeting with the Information Commissioner to see what we can do to expedite the procedures. However, complaints of this nature are absolutely ridiculous. Point of Order Mr J.C. KOBELKE : Mr Speaker, I appreciate that under standing orders question time is something that is totally within your control, but I think it is appropriate that I put to you that the Attorney General taking more than nine minutes to answer a dorothy dixer could perhaps be considered an abuse of question time, or it might simply be that the Attorney General is under the misapprehension that, as a lawyer, he gets paid for the amount of time he wastes. The SPEAKER : Members will have observed in previous question times that I am quite prepared to implement a range of measures, such as to sit members down or to shorten question time. I appreciate what the member for Balcatta said.
Mr C.C. PORTER : I refer to request 20080068. The request was for all documents and correspondence within the Premier’s office requested and received from agencies other than the Department of Industry and Resources and the Department of the Premier and Cabinet. That really narrows it down. How long would it take to deal with one of those matters? We must take a look at the environment in which we have been placed, and read the media statements released by Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich. She states — It was also revealed that 40 per cent of complaints received over the past year were complaints made against Ministers’ offices. That is quite right, but again I draw attention to the quality of those complaints. I advise members present to read the recent decision of the Office of the Information Commissioner, reference number D0172009, which is online. It was a complaint about the refusal of my office to deal with a request from Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich on 6 March 2009, which read — “I wish to gain access to the following information from the 23rd September 2008: · Your diary · Your daily itinerary documents; and · Documents detailing the expenditure on your Ministerial credit card”. Mr E.S. Ripper : We always gave out that information when in government, but you refused. Open, accountable, honest—not. Mr C.C. PORTER : It is interesting, is it not? In those circumstances, I was happy to narrow the request. I gave advice back to Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich’s office to narrow that request, but that was the subject of a complaint. The Information Commissioner made some statements about that complaint. In a preliminary opinion, for which he sought response, he stated — · It is reasonable to expect that, as a former Minister of the State Government, the complainant is well versed in the amount of work involved in dealing with her application and the ways in which it could be reduced to a manageable level. Both as the recipient of FOI access applications and as an FOI access applicant, the complainant has considerable experience and knowledge in the workings of the FOI Act. · The assistance provided by the Minister’s office to change the scope of the complainant’s access application was reasonable in the circumstances. · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work — The SPEAKER : Some members might not necessarily want to hear from the Attorney General. The question has been asked, and he is giving the answer. I formally call to order for the first time the member for Collie-Preston and the member for Albany. Mr C.C. PORTER : I think I was at the point at which I was outlining the Information Commissioner’s preliminary views, to which a response was sought. One of those preliminary views was — · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work involved in dealing with the application. To those preliminary views, Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich got a chance to respond, and this was her response. Do members want to hear the response? Government members: Yes! Mr C.C. PORTER : Okay. The response to the Information Commissioner was as follows — · The complainant’s position as a former Minister cannot be taken into account in dealing with any access applications made by her, given that her duties as a Shadow Minister and a Member of the Western Australian Parliament render her too busy to deal with each individual access application personally. The daily business of the access application is the responsibility of the complainant’s research officer who has not previously worked in a Ministerial office and who is not aware of the amount of work that an access application would entail. · The Minister took advantage — This is the submission that was sent back to the Information Commissioner — · The Minister took advantage of the lack of knowledge of the complainant’s research officer by not supplying enough information to enable her to make an educated decision on the scope of the access application and by not providing enough advice to enable her to make the correct decision. I took advantage of a person I did not know existed! A person cannot create the problem and then complain about it. I will be meeting with the Information Commissioner to see what we can do to expedite the procedures. However, complaints of this nature are absolutely ridiculous. Point of Order Mr J.C. KOBELKE : Mr Speaker, I appreciate that under standing orders question time is something that is totally within your control, but I think it is appropriate that I put to you that the Attorney General taking more than nine minutes to answer a dorothy dixer could perhaps be considered an abuse of question time, or it might simply be that the Attorney General is under the misapprehension that, as a lawyer, he gets paid for the amount of time he wastes. The SPEAKER : Members will have observed in previous question times that I am quite prepared to implement a range of measures, such as to sit members down or to shorten question time. I appreciate what the member for Balcatta said.
· Your diary · Your daily itinerary documents; and · Documents detailing the expenditure on your Ministerial credit card”.
· Your daily itinerary documents; and · Documents detailing the expenditure on your Ministerial credit card”.
· Documents detailing the expenditure on your Ministerial credit card”.
Mr C.C. PORTER : It is interesting, is it not? In those circumstances, I was happy to narrow the request. I gave advice back to Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich’s office to narrow that request, but that was the subject of a complaint. The Information Commissioner made some statements about that complaint. In a preliminary opinion, for which he sought response, he stated — · It is reasonable to expect that, as a former Minister of the State Government, the complainant is well versed in the amount of work involved in dealing with her application and the ways in which it could be reduced to a manageable level. Both as the recipient of FOI access applications and as an FOI access applicant, the complainant has considerable experience and knowledge in the workings of the FOI Act. · The assistance provided by the Minister’s office to change the scope of the complainant’s access application was reasonable in the circumstances. · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work — The SPEAKER : Some members might not necessarily want to hear from the Attorney General. The question has been asked, and he is giving the answer. I formally call to order for the first time the member for Collie-Preston and the member for Albany. Mr C.C. PORTER : I think I was at the point at which I was outlining the Information Commissioner’s preliminary views, to which a response was sought. One of those preliminary views was — · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work involved in dealing with the application. To those preliminary views, Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich got a chance to respond, and this was her response. Do members want to hear the response? Government members: Yes! Mr C.C. PORTER : Okay. The response to the Information Commissioner was as follows — · The complainant’s position as a former Minister cannot be taken into account in dealing with any access applications made by her, given that her duties as a Shadow Minister and a Member of the Western Australian Parliament render her too busy to deal with each individual access application personally. The daily business of the access application is the responsibility of the complainant’s research officer who has not previously worked in a Ministerial office and who is not aware of the amount of work that an access application would entail. · The Minister took advantage — This is the submission that was sent back to the Information Commissioner — · The Minister took advantage of the lack of knowledge of the complainant’s research officer by not supplying enough information to enable her to make an educated decision on the scope of the access application and by not providing enough advice to enable her to make the correct decision. I took advantage of a person I did not know existed! A person cannot create the problem and then complain about it. I will be meeting with the Information Commissioner to see what we can do to expedite the procedures. However, complaints of this nature are absolutely ridiculous. Point of Order Mr J.C. KOBELKE : Mr Speaker, I appreciate that under standing orders question time is something that is totally within your control, but I think it is appropriate that I put to you that the Attorney General taking more than nine minutes to answer a dorothy dixer could perhaps be considered an abuse of question time, or it might simply be that the Attorney General is under the misapprehension that, as a lawyer, he gets paid for the amount of time he wastes. The SPEAKER : Members will have observed in previous question times that I am quite prepared to implement a range of measures, such as to sit members down or to shorten question time. I appreciate what the member for Balcatta said.
· The assistance provided by the Minister’s office to change the scope of the complainant’s access application was reasonable in the circumstances. · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work —
· The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work —
Mr C.C. PORTER : I think I was at the point at which I was outlining the Information Commissioner’s preliminary views, to which a response was sought. One of those preliminary views was — · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work involved in dealing with the application. To those preliminary views, Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich got a chance to respond, and this was her response. Do members want to hear the response? Government members: Yes! Mr C.C. PORTER : Okay. The response to the Information Commissioner was as follows — · The complainant’s position as a former Minister cannot be taken into account in dealing with any access applications made by her, given that her duties as a Shadow Minister and a Member of the Western Australian Parliament render her too busy to deal with each individual access application personally. The daily business of the access application is the responsibility of the complainant’s research officer who has not previously worked in a Ministerial office and who is not aware of the amount of work that an access application would entail. · The Minister took advantage — This is the submission that was sent back to the Information Commissioner — · The Minister took advantage of the lack of knowledge of the complainant’s research officer by not supplying enough information to enable her to make an educated decision on the scope of the access application and by not providing enough advice to enable her to make the correct decision. I took advantage of a person I did not know existed! A person cannot create the problem and then complain about it. I will be meeting with the Information Commissioner to see what we can do to expedite the procedures. However, complaints of this nature are absolutely ridiculous. Point of Order Mr J.C. KOBELKE : Mr Speaker, I appreciate that under standing orders question time is something that is totally within your control, but I think it is appropriate that I put to you that the Attorney General taking more than nine minutes to answer a dorothy dixer could perhaps be considered an abuse of question time, or it might simply be that the Attorney General is under the misapprehension that, as a lawyer, he gets paid for the amount of time he wastes. The SPEAKER : Members will have observed in previous question times that I am quite prepared to implement a range of measures, such as to sit members down or to shorten question time. I appreciate what the member for Balcatta said.
Government members: Yes! Mr C.C. PORTER : Okay. The response to the Information Commissioner was as follows — · The complainant’s position as a former Minister cannot be taken into account in dealing with any access applications made by her, given that her duties as a Shadow Minister and a Member of the Western Australian Parliament render her too busy to deal with each individual access application personally. The daily business of the access application is the responsibility of the complainant’s research officer who has not previously worked in a Ministerial office and who is not aware of the amount of work that an access application would entail. · The Minister took advantage — This is the submission that was sent back to the Information Commissioner — · The Minister took advantage of the lack of knowledge of the complainant’s research officer by not supplying enough information to enable her to make an educated decision on the scope of the access application and by not providing enough advice to enable her to make the correct decision. I took advantage of a person I did not know existed! A person cannot create the problem and then complain about it. I will be meeting with the Information Commissioner to see what we can do to expedite the procedures. However, complaints of this nature are absolutely ridiculous. Point of Order Mr J.C. KOBELKE : Mr Speaker, I appreciate that under standing orders question time is something that is totally within your control, but I think it is appropriate that I put to you that the Attorney General taking more than nine minutes to answer a dorothy dixer could perhaps be considered an abuse of question time, or it might simply be that the Attorney General is under the misapprehension that, as a lawyer, he gets paid for the amount of time he wastes. The SPEAKER : Members will have observed in previous question times that I am quite prepared to implement a range of measures, such as to sit members down or to shorten question time. I appreciate what the member for Balcatta said.
Mr C.C. PORTER : Okay. The response to the Information Commissioner was as follows — · The complainant’s position as a former Minister cannot be taken into account in dealing with any access applications made by her, given that her duties as a Shadow Minister and a Member of the Western Australian Parliament render her too busy to deal with each individual access application personally. The daily business of the access application is the responsibility of the complainant’s research officer who has not previously worked in a Ministerial office and who is not aware of the amount of work that an access application would entail. · The Minister took advantage — This is the submission that was sent back to the Information Commissioner — · The Minister took advantage of the lack of knowledge of the complainant’s research officer by not supplying enough information to enable her to make an educated decision on the scope of the access application and by not providing enough advice to enable her to make the correct decision. I took advantage of a person I did not know existed! A person cannot create the problem and then complain about it. I will be meeting with the Information Commissioner to see what we can do to expedite the procedures. However, complaints of this nature are absolutely ridiculous. Point of Order Mr J.C. KOBELKE : Mr Speaker, I appreciate that under standing orders question time is something that is totally within your control, but I think it is appropriate that I put to you that the Attorney General taking more than nine minutes to answer a dorothy dixer could perhaps be considered an abuse of question time, or it might simply be that the Attorney General is under the misapprehension that, as a lawyer, he gets paid for the amount of time he wastes. The SPEAKER : Members will have observed in previous question times that I am quite prepared to implement a range of measures, such as to sit members down or to shorten question time. I appreciate what the member for Balcatta said.
· The Minister took advantage —
The SPEAKER : Members will have observed in previous question times that I am quite prepared to implement a range of measures, such as to sit members down or to shorten question time. I appreciate what the member for Balcatta said.
I refer to the 2009-10 ongoing estimates hearing on 7 September 2009 regarding the Office of the Information Commissioner. During the hearing the commissioner informed the committee that his office’s workload had increased by 80 per cent in the past year. Can the Attorney General elaborate on this issue and speak to the consequences of this increased workload? Mr C.C. PORTER replied: I thank the member for Kingsley for her question. The government takes the matter of government access and accountability very seriously. It was an election commitment, and we remain committed to it. In fact, some of the press releases that have emanated from the office of Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich consequent upon the ongoing estimates hearings have been, to say the least, quite hurtful, when we consider what has actually been happening. There is a backlog of complaints that the Information Commissioner is dealing with, and I will be meeting with him this afternoon on that issue. However, it is instructive in these circumstances to take that backlog in context. We are dealing with either an unprecedented influx of freedom of information applications and complaints — Mr E.S. Ripper : Or an unprecedented ministerial resistance to providing information? Maybe that is what we are dealing with. Mr C.C. PORTER : The Leader of the Opposition raises a very good point, because the quality of the applications and the quality of the complaints is precisely the nub of this issue. The first thing to do is to look at the context of this matter. I have undertaken a bit of analysis of the applications and complaints that have been made between 2008-09 and 2007-08; that is, a comparison between two years. The number of formal complaints has increased from 102 to 180, which is a 66 per cent increase. That is significant by any measure, but where are the complaints coming from? The number of complaints from individual members of the public has actually decreased by seven per cent, so they are obviously happy with the job government is doing on FOI applications. Mr T.G. Stephens : The opposition is doing it on behalf of the public. Mr C.C. PORTER : Is that right? That is an interesting supposition, and I will get to that. The number of complaints from the media has halved. The media are obviously very happy with our responsiveness. Where are the complaints coming from? Complaints from members of Parliament have increased by 2 000 per cent. To be fair, it is a brilliant political strategy—bombard the Information Commissioner with spurious applications and complain about every refusal, and those complaints must all be dealt with, no matter how mindless they are, and then make a press release complaining that there is a backlog. This goes to the issue of the quality of the applications. I will provide an example. This is not the example of a parliamentary question that I had recently about what sort of on-hold telephone music our offices play. That was a savagely insightful question! Mr E.S. Ripper : It is if you break the law and don’t pay the copyright fees. You are the Attorney General. Mr C.C. PORTER : Does the Leader of the Opposition have any evidence that there has been — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order! Members on my left might have suggestions about how the Attorney General should be answering this question. My preference at this point is to hear from the Attorney General. Mr C.C. PORTER : I refer to request 20080068. The request was for all documents and correspondence within the Premier’s office requested and received from agencies other than the Department of Industry and Resources and the Department of the Premier and Cabinet. That really narrows it down. How long would it take to deal with one of those matters? We must take a look at the environment in which we have been placed, and read the media statements released by Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich. She states — It was also revealed that 40 per cent of complaints received over the past year were complaints made against Ministers’ offices. That is quite right, but again I draw attention to the quality of those complaints. I advise members present to read the recent decision of the Office of the Information Commissioner, reference number D0172009, which is online. It was a complaint about the refusal of my office to deal with a request from Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich on 6 March 2009, which read — “I wish to gain access to the following information from the 23rd September 2008: · Your diary · Your daily itinerary documents; and · Documents detailing the expenditure on your Ministerial credit card”. Mr E.S. Ripper : We always gave out that information when in government, but you refused. Open, accountable, honest—not. Mr C.C. PORTER : It is interesting, is it not? In those circumstances, I was happy to narrow the request. I gave advice back to Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich’s office to narrow that request, but that was the subject of a complaint. The Information Commissioner made some statements about that complaint. In a preliminary opinion, for which he sought response, he stated — · It is reasonable to expect that, as a former Minister of the State Government, the complainant is well versed in the amount of work involved in dealing with her application and the ways in which it could be reduced to a manageable level. Both as the recipient of FOI access applications and as an FOI access applicant, the complainant has considerable experience and knowledge in the workings of the FOI Act. · The assistance provided by the Minister’s office to change the scope of the complainant’s access application was reasonable in the circumstances. · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work — The SPEAKER : Some members might not necessarily want to hear from the Attorney General. The question has been asked, and he is giving the answer. I formally call to order for the first time the member for Collie-Preston and the member for Albany. Mr C.C. PORTER : I think I was at the point at which I was outlining the Information Commissioner’s preliminary views, to which a response was sought. One of those preliminary views was — · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work involved in dealing with the application. To those preliminary views, Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich got a chance to respond, and this was her response. Do members want to hear the response? Government members: Yes! Mr C.C. PORTER : Okay. The response to the Information Commissioner was as follows — · The complainant’s position as a former Minister cannot be taken into account in dealing with any access applications made by her, given that her duties as a Shadow Minister and a Member of the Western Australian Parliament render her too busy to deal with each individual access application personally. The daily business of the access application is the responsibility of the complainant’s research officer who has not previously worked in a Ministerial office and who is not aware of the amount of work that an access application would entail. · The Minister took advantage — This is the submission that was sent back to the Information Commissioner — · The Minister took advantage of the lack of knowledge of the complainant’s research officer by not supplying enough information to enable her to make an educated decision on the scope of the access application and by not providing enough advice to enable her to make the correct decision. I took advantage of a person I did not know existed! A person cannot create the problem and then complain about it. I will be meeting with the Information Commissioner to see what we can do to expedite the procedures. However, complaints of this nature are absolutely ridiculous. Point of Order Mr J.C. KOBELKE : Mr Speaker, I appreciate that under standing orders question time is something that is totally within your control, but I think it is appropriate that I put to you that the Attorney General taking more than nine minutes to answer a dorothy dixer could perhaps be considered an abuse of question time, or it might simply be that the Attorney General is under the misapprehension that, as a lawyer, he gets paid for the amount of time he wastes. The SPEAKER : Members will have observed in previous question times that I am quite prepared to implement a range of measures, such as to sit members down or to shorten question time. I appreciate what the member for Balcatta said.
Mr C.C. PORTER replied: I thank the member for Kingsley for her question. The government takes the matter of government access and accountability very seriously. It was an election commitment, and we remain committed to it. In fact, some of the press releases that have emanated from the office of Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich consequent upon the ongoing estimates hearings have been, to say the least, quite hurtful, when we consider what has actually been happening. There is a backlog of complaints that the Information Commissioner is dealing with, and I will be meeting with him this afternoon on that issue. However, it is instructive in these circumstances to take that backlog in context. We are dealing with either an unprecedented influx of freedom of information applications and complaints — Mr E.S. Ripper : Or an unprecedented ministerial resistance to providing information? Maybe that is what we are dealing with. Mr C.C. PORTER : The Leader of the Opposition raises a very good point, because the quality of the applications and the quality of the complaints is precisely the nub of this issue. The first thing to do is to look at the context of this matter. I have undertaken a bit of analysis of the applications and complaints that have been made between 2008-09 and 2007-08; that is, a comparison between two years. The number of formal complaints has increased from 102 to 180, which is a 66 per cent increase. That is significant by any measure, but where are the complaints coming from? The number of complaints from individual members of the public has actually decreased by seven per cent, so they are obviously happy with the job government is doing on FOI applications. Mr T.G. Stephens : The opposition is doing it on behalf of the public. Mr C.C. PORTER : Is that right? That is an interesting supposition, and I will get to that. The number of complaints from the media has halved. The media are obviously very happy with our responsiveness. Where are the complaints coming from? Complaints from members of Parliament have increased by 2 000 per cent. To be fair, it is a brilliant political strategy—bombard the Information Commissioner with spurious applications and complain about every refusal, and those complaints must all be dealt with, no matter how mindless they are, and then make a press release complaining that there is a backlog. This goes to the issue of the quality of the applications. I will provide an example. This is not the example of a parliamentary question that I had recently about what sort of on-hold telephone music our offices play. That was a savagely insightful question! Mr E.S. Ripper : It is if you break the law and don’t pay the copyright fees. You are the Attorney General. Mr C.C. PORTER : Does the Leader of the Opposition have any evidence that there has been — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order! Members on my left might have suggestions about how the Attorney General should be answering this question. My preference at this point is to hear from the Attorney General. Mr C.C. PORTER : I refer to request 20080068. The request was for all documents and correspondence within the Premier’s office requested and received from agencies other than the Department of Industry and Resources and the Department of the Premier and Cabinet. That really narrows it down. How long would it take to deal with one of those matters? We must take a look at the environment in which we have been placed, and read the media statements released by Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich. She states — It was also revealed that 40 per cent of complaints received over the past year were complaints made against Ministers’ offices. That is quite right, but again I draw attention to the quality of those complaints. I advise members present to read the recent decision of the Office of the Information Commissioner, reference number D0172009, which is online. It was a complaint about the refusal of my office to deal with a request from Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich on 6 March 2009, which read — “I wish to gain access to the following information from the 23rd September 2008: · Your diary · Your daily itinerary documents; and · Documents detailing the expenditure on your Ministerial credit card”. Mr E.S. Ripper : We always gave out that information when in government, but you refused. Open, accountable, honest—not. Mr C.C. PORTER : It is interesting, is it not? In those circumstances, I was happy to narrow the request. I gave advice back to Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich’s office to narrow that request, but that was the subject of a complaint. The Information Commissioner made some statements about that complaint. In a preliminary opinion, for which he sought response, he stated — · It is reasonable to expect that, as a former Minister of the State Government, the complainant is well versed in the amount of work involved in dealing with her application and the ways in which it could be reduced to a manageable level. Both as the recipient of FOI access applications and as an FOI access applicant, the complainant has considerable experience and knowledge in the workings of the FOI Act. · The assistance provided by the Minister’s office to change the scope of the complainant’s access application was reasonable in the circumstances. · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work — The SPEAKER : Some members might not necessarily want to hear from the Attorney General. The question has been asked, and he is giving the answer. I formally call to order for the first time the member for Collie-Preston and the member for Albany. Mr C.C. PORTER : I think I was at the point at which I was outlining the Information Commissioner’s preliminary views, to which a response was sought. One of those preliminary views was — · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work involved in dealing with the application. To those preliminary views, Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich got a chance to respond, and this was her response. Do members want to hear the response? Government members: Yes! Mr C.C. PORTER : Okay. The response to the Information Commissioner was as follows — · The complainant’s position as a former Minister cannot be taken into account in dealing with any access applications made by her, given that her duties as a Shadow Minister and a Member of the Western Australian Parliament render her too busy to deal with each individual access application personally. The daily business of the access application is the responsibility of the complainant’s research officer who has not previously worked in a Ministerial office and who is not aware of the amount of work that an access application would entail. · The Minister took advantage — This is the submission that was sent back to the Information Commissioner — · The Minister took advantage of the lack of knowledge of the complainant’s research officer by not supplying enough information to enable her to make an educated decision on the scope of the access application and by not providing enough advice to enable her to make the correct decision. I took advantage of a person I did not know existed! A person cannot create the problem and then complain about it. I will be meeting with the Information Commissioner to see what we can do to expedite the procedures. However, complaints of this nature are absolutely ridiculous. Point of Order Mr J.C. KOBELKE : Mr Speaker, I appreciate that under standing orders question time is something that is totally within your control, but I think it is appropriate that I put to you that the Attorney General taking more than nine minutes to answer a dorothy dixer could perhaps be considered an abuse of question time, or it might simply be that the Attorney General is under the misapprehension that, as a lawyer, he gets paid for the amount of time he wastes. The SPEAKER : Members will have observed in previous question times that I am quite prepared to implement a range of measures, such as to sit members down or to shorten question time. I appreciate what the member for Balcatta said.
I thank the member for Kingsley for her question. The government takes the matter of government access and accountability very seriously. It was an election commitment, and we remain committed to it. In fact, some of the press releases that have emanated from the office of Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich consequent upon the ongoing estimates hearings have been, to say the least, quite hurtful, when we consider what has actually been happening. There is a backlog of complaints that the Information Commissioner is dealing with, and I will be meeting with him this afternoon on that issue. However, it is instructive in these circumstances to take that backlog in context. We are dealing with either an unprecedented influx of freedom of information applications and complaints — Mr E.S. Ripper : Or an unprecedented ministerial resistance to providing information? Maybe that is what we are dealing with. Mr C.C. PORTER : The Leader of the Opposition raises a very good point, because the quality of the applications and the quality of the complaints is precisely the nub of this issue. The first thing to do is to look at the context of this matter. I have undertaken a bit of analysis of the applications and complaints that have been made between 2008-09 and 2007-08; that is, a comparison between two years. The number of formal complaints has increased from 102 to 180, which is a 66 per cent increase. That is significant by any measure, but where are the complaints coming from? The number of complaints from individual members of the public has actually decreased by seven per cent, so they are obviously happy with the job government is doing on FOI applications. Mr T.G. Stephens : The opposition is doing it on behalf of the public. Mr C.C. PORTER : Is that right? That is an interesting supposition, and I will get to that. The number of complaints from the media has halved. The media are obviously very happy with our responsiveness. Where are the complaints coming from? Complaints from members of Parliament have increased by 2 000 per cent. To be fair, it is a brilliant political strategy—bombard the Information Commissioner with spurious applications and complain about every refusal, and those complaints must all be dealt with, no matter how mindless they are, and then make a press release complaining that there is a backlog. This goes to the issue of the quality of the applications. I will provide an example. This is not the example of a parliamentary question that I had recently about what sort of on-hold telephone music our offices play. That was a savagely insightful question! Mr E.S. Ripper : It is if you break the law and don’t pay the copyright fees. You are the Attorney General. Mr C.C. PORTER : Does the Leader of the Opposition have any evidence that there has been — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order! Members on my left might have suggestions about how the Attorney General should be answering this question. My preference at this point is to hear from the Attorney General. Mr C.C. PORTER : I refer to request 20080068. The request was for all documents and correspondence within the Premier’s office requested and received from agencies other than the Department of Industry and Resources and the Department of the Premier and Cabinet. That really narrows it down. How long would it take to deal with one of those matters? We must take a look at the environment in which we have been placed, and read the media statements released by Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich. She states — It was also revealed that 40 per cent of complaints received over the past year were complaints made against Ministers’ offices. That is quite right, but again I draw attention to the quality of those complaints. I advise members present to read the recent decision of the Office of the Information Commissioner, reference number D0172009, which is online. It was a complaint about the refusal of my office to deal with a request from Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich on 6 March 2009, which read — “I wish to gain access to the following information from the 23rd September 2008: · Your diary · Your daily itinerary documents; and · Documents detailing the expenditure on your Ministerial credit card”. Mr E.S. Ripper : We always gave out that information when in government, but you refused. Open, accountable, honest—not. Mr C.C. PORTER : It is interesting, is it not? In those circumstances, I was happy to narrow the request. I gave advice back to Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich’s office to narrow that request, but that was the subject of a complaint. The Information Commissioner made some statements about that complaint. In a preliminary opinion, for which he sought response, he stated — · It is reasonable to expect that, as a former Minister of the State Government, the complainant is well versed in the amount of work involved in dealing with her application and the ways in which it could be reduced to a manageable level. Both as the recipient of FOI access applications and as an FOI access applicant, the complainant has considerable experience and knowledge in the workings of the FOI Act. · The assistance provided by the Minister’s office to change the scope of the complainant’s access application was reasonable in the circumstances. · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work — The SPEAKER : Some members might not necessarily want to hear from the Attorney General. The question has been asked, and he is giving the answer. I formally call to order for the first time the member for Collie-Preston and the member for Albany. Mr C.C. PORTER : I think I was at the point at which I was outlining the Information Commissioner’s preliminary views, to which a response was sought. One of those preliminary views was — · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work involved in dealing with the application. To those preliminary views, Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich got a chance to respond, and this was her response. Do members want to hear the response? Government members: Yes! Mr C.C. PORTER : Okay. The response to the Information Commissioner was as follows — · The complainant’s position as a former Minister cannot be taken into account in dealing with any access applications made by her, given that her duties as a Shadow Minister and a Member of the Western Australian Parliament render her too busy to deal with each individual access application personally. The daily business of the access application is the responsibility of the complainant’s research officer who has not previously worked in a Ministerial office and who is not aware of the amount of work that an access application would entail. · The Minister took advantage — This is the submission that was sent back to the Information Commissioner — · The Minister took advantage of the lack of knowledge of the complainant’s research officer by not supplying enough information to enable her to make an educated decision on the scope of the access application and by not providing enough advice to enable her to make the correct decision. I took advantage of a person I did not know existed! A person cannot create the problem and then complain about it. I will be meeting with the Information Commissioner to see what we can do to expedite the procedures. However, complaints of this nature are absolutely ridiculous. Point of Order Mr J.C. KOBELKE : Mr Speaker, I appreciate that under standing orders question time is something that is totally within your control, but I think it is appropriate that I put to you that the Attorney General taking more than nine minutes to answer a dorothy dixer could perhaps be considered an abuse of question time, or it might simply be that the Attorney General is under the misapprehension that, as a lawyer, he gets paid for the amount of time he wastes. The SPEAKER : Members will have observed in previous question times that I am quite prepared to implement a range of measures, such as to sit members down or to shorten question time. I appreciate what the member for Balcatta said.
Mr E.S. Ripper : Or an unprecedented ministerial resistance to providing information? Maybe that is what we are dealing with. Mr C.C. PORTER : The Leader of the Opposition raises a very good point, because the quality of the applications and the quality of the complaints is precisely the nub of this issue. The first thing to do is to look at the context of this matter. I have undertaken a bit of analysis of the applications and complaints that have been made between 2008-09 and 2007-08; that is, a comparison between two years. The number of formal complaints has increased from 102 to 180, which is a 66 per cent increase. That is significant by any measure, but where are the complaints coming from? The number of complaints from individual members of the public has actually decreased by seven per cent, so they are obviously happy with the job government is doing on FOI applications. Mr T.G. Stephens : The opposition is doing it on behalf of the public. Mr C.C. PORTER : Is that right? That is an interesting supposition, and I will get to that. The number of complaints from the media has halved. The media are obviously very happy with our responsiveness. Where are the complaints coming from? Complaints from members of Parliament have increased by 2 000 per cent. To be fair, it is a brilliant political strategy—bombard the Information Commissioner with spurious applications and complain about every refusal, and those complaints must all be dealt with, no matter how mindless they are, and then make a press release complaining that there is a backlog. This goes to the issue of the quality of the applications. I will provide an example. This is not the example of a parliamentary question that I had recently about what sort of on-hold telephone music our offices play. That was a savagely insightful question! Mr E.S. Ripper : It is if you break the law and don’t pay the copyright fees. You are the Attorney General. Mr C.C. PORTER : Does the Leader of the Opposition have any evidence that there has been — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order! Members on my left might have suggestions about how the Attorney General should be answering this question. My preference at this point is to hear from the Attorney General. Mr C.C. PORTER : I refer to request 20080068. The request was for all documents and correspondence within the Premier’s office requested and received from agencies other than the Department of Industry and Resources and the Department of the Premier and Cabinet. That really narrows it down. How long would it take to deal with one of those matters? We must take a look at the environment in which we have been placed, and read the media statements released by Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich. She states — It was also revealed that 40 per cent of complaints received over the past year were complaints made against Ministers’ offices. That is quite right, but again I draw attention to the quality of those complaints. I advise members present to read the recent decision of the Office of the Information Commissioner, reference number D0172009, which is online. It was a complaint about the refusal of my office to deal with a request from Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich on 6 March 2009, which read — “I wish to gain access to the following information from the 23rd September 2008: · Your diary · Your daily itinerary documents; and · Documents detailing the expenditure on your Ministerial credit card”. Mr E.S. Ripper : We always gave out that information when in government, but you refused. Open, accountable, honest—not. Mr C.C. PORTER : It is interesting, is it not? In those circumstances, I was happy to narrow the request. I gave advice back to Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich’s office to narrow that request, but that was the subject of a complaint. The Information Commissioner made some statements about that complaint. In a preliminary opinion, for which he sought response, he stated — · It is reasonable to expect that, as a former Minister of the State Government, the complainant is well versed in the amount of work involved in dealing with her application and the ways in which it could be reduced to a manageable level. Both as the recipient of FOI access applications and as an FOI access applicant, the complainant has considerable experience and knowledge in the workings of the FOI Act. · The assistance provided by the Minister’s office to change the scope of the complainant’s access application was reasonable in the circumstances. · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work — The SPEAKER : Some members might not necessarily want to hear from the Attorney General. The question has been asked, and he is giving the answer. I formally call to order for the first time the member for Collie-Preston and the member for Albany. Mr C.C. PORTER : I think I was at the point at which I was outlining the Information Commissioner’s preliminary views, to which a response was sought. One of those preliminary views was — · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work involved in dealing with the application. To those preliminary views, Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich got a chance to respond, and this was her response. Do members want to hear the response? Government members: Yes! Mr C.C. PORTER : Okay. The response to the Information Commissioner was as follows — · The complainant’s position as a former Minister cannot be taken into account in dealing with any access applications made by her, given that her duties as a Shadow Minister and a Member of the Western Australian Parliament render her too busy to deal with each individual access application personally. The daily business of the access application is the responsibility of the complainant’s research officer who has not previously worked in a Ministerial office and who is not aware of the amount of work that an access application would entail. · The Minister took advantage — This is the submission that was sent back to the Information Commissioner — · The Minister took advantage of the lack of knowledge of the complainant’s research officer by not supplying enough information to enable her to make an educated decision on the scope of the access application and by not providing enough advice to enable her to make the correct decision. I took advantage of a person I did not know existed! A person cannot create the problem and then complain about it. I will be meeting with the Information Commissioner to see what we can do to expedite the procedures. However, complaints of this nature are absolutely ridiculous. Point of Order Mr J.C. KOBELKE : Mr Speaker, I appreciate that under standing orders question time is something that is totally within your control, but I think it is appropriate that I put to you that the Attorney General taking more than nine minutes to answer a dorothy dixer could perhaps be considered an abuse of question time, or it might simply be that the Attorney General is under the misapprehension that, as a lawyer, he gets paid for the amount of time he wastes. The SPEAKER : Members will have observed in previous question times that I am quite prepared to implement a range of measures, such as to sit members down or to shorten question time. I appreciate what the member for Balcatta said.
Mr C.C. PORTER : The Leader of the Opposition raises a very good point, because the quality of the applications and the quality of the complaints is precisely the nub of this issue. The first thing to do is to look at the context of this matter. I have undertaken a bit of analysis of the applications and complaints that have been made between 2008-09 and 2007-08; that is, a comparison between two years. The number of formal complaints has increased from 102 to 180, which is a 66 per cent increase. That is significant by any measure, but where are the complaints coming from? The number of complaints from individual members of the public has actually decreased by seven per cent, so they are obviously happy with the job government is doing on FOI applications. Mr T.G. Stephens : The opposition is doing it on behalf of the public. Mr C.C. PORTER : Is that right? That is an interesting supposition, and I will get to that. The number of complaints from the media has halved. The media are obviously very happy with our responsiveness. Where are the complaints coming from? Complaints from members of Parliament have increased by 2 000 per cent. To be fair, it is a brilliant political strategy—bombard the Information Commissioner with spurious applications and complain about every refusal, and those complaints must all be dealt with, no matter how mindless they are, and then make a press release complaining that there is a backlog. This goes to the issue of the quality of the applications. I will provide an example. This is not the example of a parliamentary question that I had recently about what sort of on-hold telephone music our offices play. That was a savagely insightful question! Mr E.S. Ripper : It is if you break the law and don’t pay the copyright fees. You are the Attorney General. Mr C.C. PORTER : Does the Leader of the Opposition have any evidence that there has been — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order! Members on my left might have suggestions about how the Attorney General should be answering this question. My preference at this point is to hear from the Attorney General. Mr C.C. PORTER : I refer to request 20080068. The request was for all documents and correspondence within the Premier’s office requested and received from agencies other than the Department of Industry and Resources and the Department of the Premier and Cabinet. That really narrows it down. How long would it take to deal with one of those matters? We must take a look at the environment in which we have been placed, and read the media statements released by Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich. She states — It was also revealed that 40 per cent of complaints received over the past year were complaints made against Ministers’ offices. That is quite right, but again I draw attention to the quality of those complaints. I advise members present to read the recent decision of the Office of the Information Commissioner, reference number D0172009, which is online. It was a complaint about the refusal of my office to deal with a request from Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich on 6 March 2009, which read — “I wish to gain access to the following information from the 23rd September 2008: · Your diary · Your daily itinerary documents; and · Documents detailing the expenditure on your Ministerial credit card”. Mr E.S. Ripper : We always gave out that information when in government, but you refused. Open, accountable, honest—not. Mr C.C. PORTER : It is interesting, is it not? In those circumstances, I was happy to narrow the request. I gave advice back to Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich’s office to narrow that request, but that was the subject of a complaint. The Information Commissioner made some statements about that complaint. In a preliminary opinion, for which he sought response, he stated — · It is reasonable to expect that, as a former Minister of the State Government, the complainant is well versed in the amount of work involved in dealing with her application and the ways in which it could be reduced to a manageable level. Both as the recipient of FOI access applications and as an FOI access applicant, the complainant has considerable experience and knowledge in the workings of the FOI Act. · The assistance provided by the Minister’s office to change the scope of the complainant’s access application was reasonable in the circumstances. · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work — The SPEAKER : Some members might not necessarily want to hear from the Attorney General. The question has been asked, and he is giving the answer. I formally call to order for the first time the member for Collie-Preston and the member for Albany. Mr C.C. PORTER : I think I was at the point at which I was outlining the Information Commissioner’s preliminary views, to which a response was sought. One of those preliminary views was — · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work involved in dealing with the application. To those preliminary views, Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich got a chance to respond, and this was her response. Do members want to hear the response? Government members: Yes! Mr C.C. PORTER : Okay. The response to the Information Commissioner was as follows — · The complainant’s position as a former Minister cannot be taken into account in dealing with any access applications made by her, given that her duties as a Shadow Minister and a Member of the Western Australian Parliament render her too busy to deal with each individual access application personally. The daily business of the access application is the responsibility of the complainant’s research officer who has not previously worked in a Ministerial office and who is not aware of the amount of work that an access application would entail. · The Minister took advantage — This is the submission that was sent back to the Information Commissioner — · The Minister took advantage of the lack of knowledge of the complainant’s research officer by not supplying enough information to enable her to make an educated decision on the scope of the access application and by not providing enough advice to enable her to make the correct decision. I took advantage of a person I did not know existed! A person cannot create the problem and then complain about it. I will be meeting with the Information Commissioner to see what we can do to expedite the procedures. However, complaints of this nature are absolutely ridiculous. Point of Order Mr J.C. KOBELKE : Mr Speaker, I appreciate that under standing orders question time is something that is totally within your control, but I think it is appropriate that I put to you that the Attorney General taking more than nine minutes to answer a dorothy dixer could perhaps be considered an abuse of question time, or it might simply be that the Attorney General is under the misapprehension that, as a lawyer, he gets paid for the amount of time he wastes. The SPEAKER : Members will have observed in previous question times that I am quite prepared to implement a range of measures, such as to sit members down or to shorten question time. I appreciate what the member for Balcatta said.
The first thing to do is to look at the context of this matter. I have undertaken a bit of analysis of the applications and complaints that have been made between 2008-09 and 2007-08; that is, a comparison between two years. The number of formal complaints has increased from 102 to 180, which is a 66 per cent increase. That is significant by any measure, but where are the complaints coming from? The number of complaints from individual members of the public has actually decreased by seven per cent, so they are obviously happy with the job government is doing on FOI applications. Mr T.G. Stephens : The opposition is doing it on behalf of the public. Mr C.C. PORTER : Is that right? That is an interesting supposition, and I will get to that. The number of complaints from the media has halved. The media are obviously very happy with our responsiveness. Where are the complaints coming from? Complaints from members of Parliament have increased by 2 000 per cent. To be fair, it is a brilliant political strategy—bombard the Information Commissioner with spurious applications and complain about every refusal, and those complaints must all be dealt with, no matter how mindless they are, and then make a press release complaining that there is a backlog. This goes to the issue of the quality of the applications. I will provide an example. This is not the example of a parliamentary question that I had recently about what sort of on-hold telephone music our offices play. That was a savagely insightful question! Mr E.S. Ripper : It is if you break the law and don’t pay the copyright fees. You are the Attorney General. Mr C.C. PORTER : Does the Leader of the Opposition have any evidence that there has been — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order! Members on my left might have suggestions about how the Attorney General should be answering this question. My preference at this point is to hear from the Attorney General. Mr C.C. PORTER : I refer to request 20080068. The request was for all documents and correspondence within the Premier’s office requested and received from agencies other than the Department of Industry and Resources and the Department of the Premier and Cabinet. That really narrows it down. How long would it take to deal with one of those matters? We must take a look at the environment in which we have been placed, and read the media statements released by Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich. She states — It was also revealed that 40 per cent of complaints received over the past year were complaints made against Ministers’ offices. That is quite right, but again I draw attention to the quality of those complaints. I advise members present to read the recent decision of the Office of the Information Commissioner, reference number D0172009, which is online. It was a complaint about the refusal of my office to deal with a request from Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich on 6 March 2009, which read — “I wish to gain access to the following information from the 23rd September 2008: · Your diary · Your daily itinerary documents; and · Documents detailing the expenditure on your Ministerial credit card”. Mr E.S. Ripper : We always gave out that information when in government, but you refused. Open, accountable, honest—not. Mr C.C. PORTER : It is interesting, is it not? In those circumstances, I was happy to narrow the request. I gave advice back to Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich’s office to narrow that request, but that was the subject of a complaint. The Information Commissioner made some statements about that complaint. In a preliminary opinion, for which he sought response, he stated — · It is reasonable to expect that, as a former Minister of the State Government, the complainant is well versed in the amount of work involved in dealing with her application and the ways in which it could be reduced to a manageable level. Both as the recipient of FOI access applications and as an FOI access applicant, the complainant has considerable experience and knowledge in the workings of the FOI Act. · The assistance provided by the Minister’s office to change the scope of the complainant’s access application was reasonable in the circumstances. · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work — The SPEAKER : Some members might not necessarily want to hear from the Attorney General. The question has been asked, and he is giving the answer. I formally call to order for the first time the member for Collie-Preston and the member for Albany. Mr C.C. PORTER : I think I was at the point at which I was outlining the Information Commissioner’s preliminary views, to which a response was sought. One of those preliminary views was — · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work involved in dealing with the application. To those preliminary views, Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich got a chance to respond, and this was her response. Do members want to hear the response? Government members: Yes! Mr C.C. PORTER : Okay. The response to the Information Commissioner was as follows — · The complainant’s position as a former Minister cannot be taken into account in dealing with any access applications made by her, given that her duties as a Shadow Minister and a Member of the Western Australian Parliament render her too busy to deal with each individual access application personally. The daily business of the access application is the responsibility of the complainant’s research officer who has not previously worked in a Ministerial office and who is not aware of the amount of work that an access application would entail. · The Minister took advantage — This is the submission that was sent back to the Information Commissioner — · The Minister took advantage of the lack of knowledge of the complainant’s research officer by not supplying enough information to enable her to make an educated decision on the scope of the access application and by not providing enough advice to enable her to make the correct decision. I took advantage of a person I did not know existed! A person cannot create the problem and then complain about it. I will be meeting with the Information Commissioner to see what we can do to expedite the procedures. However, complaints of this nature are absolutely ridiculous. Point of Order Mr J.C. KOBELKE : Mr Speaker, I appreciate that under standing orders question time is something that is totally within your control, but I think it is appropriate that I put to you that the Attorney General taking more than nine minutes to answer a dorothy dixer could perhaps be considered an abuse of question time, or it might simply be that the Attorney General is under the misapprehension that, as a lawyer, he gets paid for the amount of time he wastes. The SPEAKER : Members will have observed in previous question times that I am quite prepared to implement a range of measures, such as to sit members down or to shorten question time. I appreciate what the member for Balcatta said.
Mr T.G. Stephens : The opposition is doing it on behalf of the public. Mr C.C. PORTER : Is that right? That is an interesting supposition, and I will get to that. The number of complaints from the media has halved. The media are obviously very happy with our responsiveness. Where are the complaints coming from? Complaints from members of Parliament have increased by 2 000 per cent. To be fair, it is a brilliant political strategy—bombard the Information Commissioner with spurious applications and complain about every refusal, and those complaints must all be dealt with, no matter how mindless they are, and then make a press release complaining that there is a backlog. This goes to the issue of the quality of the applications. I will provide an example. This is not the example of a parliamentary question that I had recently about what sort of on-hold telephone music our offices play. That was a savagely insightful question! Mr E.S. Ripper : It is if you break the law and don’t pay the copyright fees. You are the Attorney General. Mr C.C. PORTER : Does the Leader of the Opposition have any evidence that there has been — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order! Members on my left might have suggestions about how the Attorney General should be answering this question. My preference at this point is to hear from the Attorney General. Mr C.C. PORTER : I refer to request 20080068. The request was for all documents and correspondence within the Premier’s office requested and received from agencies other than the Department of Industry and Resources and the Department of the Premier and Cabinet. That really narrows it down. How long would it take to deal with one of those matters? We must take a look at the environment in which we have been placed, and read the media statements released by Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich. She states — It was also revealed that 40 per cent of complaints received over the past year were complaints made against Ministers’ offices. That is quite right, but again I draw attention to the quality of those complaints. I advise members present to read the recent decision of the Office of the Information Commissioner, reference number D0172009, which is online. It was a complaint about the refusal of my office to deal with a request from Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich on 6 March 2009, which read — “I wish to gain access to the following information from the 23rd September 2008: · Your diary · Your daily itinerary documents; and · Documents detailing the expenditure on your Ministerial credit card”. Mr E.S. Ripper : We always gave out that information when in government, but you refused. Open, accountable, honest—not. Mr C.C. PORTER : It is interesting, is it not? In those circumstances, I was happy to narrow the request. I gave advice back to Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich’s office to narrow that request, but that was the subject of a complaint. The Information Commissioner made some statements about that complaint. In a preliminary opinion, for which he sought response, he stated — · It is reasonable to expect that, as a former Minister of the State Government, the complainant is well versed in the amount of work involved in dealing with her application and the ways in which it could be reduced to a manageable level. Both as the recipient of FOI access applications and as an FOI access applicant, the complainant has considerable experience and knowledge in the workings of the FOI Act. · The assistance provided by the Minister’s office to change the scope of the complainant’s access application was reasonable in the circumstances. · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work — The SPEAKER : Some members might not necessarily want to hear from the Attorney General. The question has been asked, and he is giving the answer. I formally call to order for the first time the member for Collie-Preston and the member for Albany. Mr C.C. PORTER : I think I was at the point at which I was outlining the Information Commissioner’s preliminary views, to which a response was sought. One of those preliminary views was — · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work involved in dealing with the application. To those preliminary views, Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich got a chance to respond, and this was her response. Do members want to hear the response? Government members: Yes! Mr C.C. PORTER : Okay. The response to the Information Commissioner was as follows — · The complainant’s position as a former Minister cannot be taken into account in dealing with any access applications made by her, given that her duties as a Shadow Minister and a Member of the Western Australian Parliament render her too busy to deal with each individual access application personally. The daily business of the access application is the responsibility of the complainant’s research officer who has not previously worked in a Ministerial office and who is not aware of the amount of work that an access application would entail. · The Minister took advantage — This is the submission that was sent back to the Information Commissioner — · The Minister took advantage of the lack of knowledge of the complainant’s research officer by not supplying enough information to enable her to make an educated decision on the scope of the access application and by not providing enough advice to enable her to make the correct decision. I took advantage of a person I did not know existed! A person cannot create the problem and then complain about it. I will be meeting with the Information Commissioner to see what we can do to expedite the procedures. However, complaints of this nature are absolutely ridiculous. Point of Order Mr J.C. KOBELKE : Mr Speaker, I appreciate that under standing orders question time is something that is totally within your control, but I think it is appropriate that I put to you that the Attorney General taking more than nine minutes to answer a dorothy dixer could perhaps be considered an abuse of question time, or it might simply be that the Attorney General is under the misapprehension that, as a lawyer, he gets paid for the amount of time he wastes. The SPEAKER : Members will have observed in previous question times that I am quite prepared to implement a range of measures, such as to sit members down or to shorten question time. I appreciate what the member for Balcatta said.
Mr C.C. PORTER : Is that right? That is an interesting supposition, and I will get to that. The number of complaints from the media has halved. The media are obviously very happy with our responsiveness. Where are the complaints coming from? Complaints from members of Parliament have increased by 2 000 per cent. To be fair, it is a brilliant political strategy—bombard the Information Commissioner with spurious applications and complain about every refusal, and those complaints must all be dealt with, no matter how mindless they are, and then make a press release complaining that there is a backlog. This goes to the issue of the quality of the applications. I will provide an example. This is not the example of a parliamentary question that I had recently about what sort of on-hold telephone music our offices play. That was a savagely insightful question! Mr E.S. Ripper : It is if you break the law and don’t pay the copyright fees. You are the Attorney General. Mr C.C. PORTER : Does the Leader of the Opposition have any evidence that there has been — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order! Members on my left might have suggestions about how the Attorney General should be answering this question. My preference at this point is to hear from the Attorney General. Mr C.C. PORTER : I refer to request 20080068. The request was for all documents and correspondence within the Premier’s office requested and received from agencies other than the Department of Industry and Resources and the Department of the Premier and Cabinet. That really narrows it down. How long would it take to deal with one of those matters? We must take a look at the environment in which we have been placed, and read the media statements released by Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich. She states — It was also revealed that 40 per cent of complaints received over the past year were complaints made against Ministers’ offices. That is quite right, but again I draw attention to the quality of those complaints. I advise members present to read the recent decision of the Office of the Information Commissioner, reference number D0172009, which is online. It was a complaint about the refusal of my office to deal with a request from Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich on 6 March 2009, which read — “I wish to gain access to the following information from the 23rd September 2008: · Your diary · Your daily itinerary documents; and · Documents detailing the expenditure on your Ministerial credit card”. Mr E.S. Ripper : We always gave out that information when in government, but you refused. Open, accountable, honest—not. Mr C.C. PORTER : It is interesting, is it not? In those circumstances, I was happy to narrow the request. I gave advice back to Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich’s office to narrow that request, but that was the subject of a complaint. The Information Commissioner made some statements about that complaint. In a preliminary opinion, for which he sought response, he stated — · It is reasonable to expect that, as a former Minister of the State Government, the complainant is well versed in the amount of work involved in dealing with her application and the ways in which it could be reduced to a manageable level. Both as the recipient of FOI access applications and as an FOI access applicant, the complainant has considerable experience and knowledge in the workings of the FOI Act. · The assistance provided by the Minister’s office to change the scope of the complainant’s access application was reasonable in the circumstances. · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work — The SPEAKER : Some members might not necessarily want to hear from the Attorney General. The question has been asked, and he is giving the answer. I formally call to order for the first time the member for Collie-Preston and the member for Albany. Mr C.C. PORTER : I think I was at the point at which I was outlining the Information Commissioner’s preliminary views, to which a response was sought. One of those preliminary views was — · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work involved in dealing with the application. To those preliminary views, Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich got a chance to respond, and this was her response. Do members want to hear the response? Government members: Yes! Mr C.C. PORTER : Okay. The response to the Information Commissioner was as follows — · The complainant’s position as a former Minister cannot be taken into account in dealing with any access applications made by her, given that her duties as a Shadow Minister and a Member of the Western Australian Parliament render her too busy to deal with each individual access application personally. The daily business of the access application is the responsibility of the complainant’s research officer who has not previously worked in a Ministerial office and who is not aware of the amount of work that an access application would entail. · The Minister took advantage — This is the submission that was sent back to the Information Commissioner — · The Minister took advantage of the lack of knowledge of the complainant’s research officer by not supplying enough information to enable her to make an educated decision on the scope of the access application and by not providing enough advice to enable her to make the correct decision. I took advantage of a person I did not know existed! A person cannot create the problem and then complain about it. I will be meeting with the Information Commissioner to see what we can do to expedite the procedures. However, complaints of this nature are absolutely ridiculous. Point of Order Mr J.C. KOBELKE : Mr Speaker, I appreciate that under standing orders question time is something that is totally within your control, but I think it is appropriate that I put to you that the Attorney General taking more than nine minutes to answer a dorothy dixer could perhaps be considered an abuse of question time, or it might simply be that the Attorney General is under the misapprehension that, as a lawyer, he gets paid for the amount of time he wastes. The SPEAKER : Members will have observed in previous question times that I am quite prepared to implement a range of measures, such as to sit members down or to shorten question time. I appreciate what the member for Balcatta said.
The number of complaints from the media has halved. The media are obviously very happy with our responsiveness. Where are the complaints coming from? Complaints from members of Parliament have increased by 2 000 per cent. To be fair, it is a brilliant political strategy—bombard the Information Commissioner with spurious applications and complain about every refusal, and those complaints must all be dealt with, no matter how mindless they are, and then make a press release complaining that there is a backlog. This goes to the issue of the quality of the applications. I will provide an example. This is not the example of a parliamentary question that I had recently about what sort of on-hold telephone music our offices play. That was a savagely insightful question! Mr E.S. Ripper : It is if you break the law and don’t pay the copyright fees. You are the Attorney General. Mr C.C. PORTER : Does the Leader of the Opposition have any evidence that there has been — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order! Members on my left might have suggestions about how the Attorney General should be answering this question. My preference at this point is to hear from the Attorney General. Mr C.C. PORTER : I refer to request 20080068. The request was for all documents and correspondence within the Premier’s office requested and received from agencies other than the Department of Industry and Resources and the Department of the Premier and Cabinet. That really narrows it down. How long would it take to deal with one of those matters? We must take a look at the environment in which we have been placed, and read the media statements released by Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich. She states — It was also revealed that 40 per cent of complaints received over the past year were complaints made against Ministers’ offices. That is quite right, but again I draw attention to the quality of those complaints. I advise members present to read the recent decision of the Office of the Information Commissioner, reference number D0172009, which is online. It was a complaint about the refusal of my office to deal with a request from Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich on 6 March 2009, which read — “I wish to gain access to the following information from the 23rd September 2008: · Your diary · Your daily itinerary documents; and · Documents detailing the expenditure on your Ministerial credit card”. Mr E.S. Ripper : We always gave out that information when in government, but you refused. Open, accountable, honest—not. Mr C.C. PORTER : It is interesting, is it not? In those circumstances, I was happy to narrow the request. I gave advice back to Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich’s office to narrow that request, but that was the subject of a complaint. The Information Commissioner made some statements about that complaint. In a preliminary opinion, for which he sought response, he stated — · It is reasonable to expect that, as a former Minister of the State Government, the complainant is well versed in the amount of work involved in dealing with her application and the ways in which it could be reduced to a manageable level. Both as the recipient of FOI access applications and as an FOI access applicant, the complainant has considerable experience and knowledge in the workings of the FOI Act. · The assistance provided by the Minister’s office to change the scope of the complainant’s access application was reasonable in the circumstances. · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work — The SPEAKER : Some members might not necessarily want to hear from the Attorney General. The question has been asked, and he is giving the answer. I formally call to order for the first time the member for Collie-Preston and the member for Albany. Mr C.C. PORTER : I think I was at the point at which I was outlining the Information Commissioner’s preliminary views, to which a response was sought. One of those preliminary views was — · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work involved in dealing with the application. To those preliminary views, Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich got a chance to respond, and this was her response. Do members want to hear the response? Government members: Yes! Mr C.C. PORTER : Okay. The response to the Information Commissioner was as follows — · The complainant’s position as a former Minister cannot be taken into account in dealing with any access applications made by her, given that her duties as a Shadow Minister and a Member of the Western Australian Parliament render her too busy to deal with each individual access application personally. The daily business of the access application is the responsibility of the complainant’s research officer who has not previously worked in a Ministerial office and who is not aware of the amount of work that an access application would entail. · The Minister took advantage — This is the submission that was sent back to the Information Commissioner — · The Minister took advantage of the lack of knowledge of the complainant’s research officer by not supplying enough information to enable her to make an educated decision on the scope of the access application and by not providing enough advice to enable her to make the correct decision. I took advantage of a person I did not know existed! A person cannot create the problem and then complain about it. I will be meeting with the Information Commissioner to see what we can do to expedite the procedures. However, complaints of this nature are absolutely ridiculous. Point of Order Mr J.C. KOBELKE : Mr Speaker, I appreciate that under standing orders question time is something that is totally within your control, but I think it is appropriate that I put to you that the Attorney General taking more than nine minutes to answer a dorothy dixer could perhaps be considered an abuse of question time, or it might simply be that the Attorney General is under the misapprehension that, as a lawyer, he gets paid for the amount of time he wastes. The SPEAKER : Members will have observed in previous question times that I am quite prepared to implement a range of measures, such as to sit members down or to shorten question time. I appreciate what the member for Balcatta said.
Mr E.S. Ripper : It is if you break the law and don’t pay the copyright fees. You are the Attorney General. Mr C.C. PORTER : Does the Leader of the Opposition have any evidence that there has been — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order! Members on my left might have suggestions about how the Attorney General should be answering this question. My preference at this point is to hear from the Attorney General. Mr C.C. PORTER : I refer to request 20080068. The request was for all documents and correspondence within the Premier’s office requested and received from agencies other than the Department of Industry and Resources and the Department of the Premier and Cabinet. That really narrows it down. How long would it take to deal with one of those matters? We must take a look at the environment in which we have been placed, and read the media statements released by Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich. She states — It was also revealed that 40 per cent of complaints received over the past year were complaints made against Ministers’ offices. That is quite right, but again I draw attention to the quality of those complaints. I advise members present to read the recent decision of the Office of the Information Commissioner, reference number D0172009, which is online. It was a complaint about the refusal of my office to deal with a request from Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich on 6 March 2009, which read — “I wish to gain access to the following information from the 23rd September 2008: · Your diary · Your daily itinerary documents; and · Documents detailing the expenditure on your Ministerial credit card”. Mr E.S. Ripper : We always gave out that information when in government, but you refused. Open, accountable, honest—not. Mr C.C. PORTER : It is interesting, is it not? In those circumstances, I was happy to narrow the request. I gave advice back to Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich’s office to narrow that request, but that was the subject of a complaint. The Information Commissioner made some statements about that complaint. In a preliminary opinion, for which he sought response, he stated — · It is reasonable to expect that, as a former Minister of the State Government, the complainant is well versed in the amount of work involved in dealing with her application and the ways in which it could be reduced to a manageable level. Both as the recipient of FOI access applications and as an FOI access applicant, the complainant has considerable experience and knowledge in the workings of the FOI Act. · The assistance provided by the Minister’s office to change the scope of the complainant’s access application was reasonable in the circumstances. · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work — The SPEAKER : Some members might not necessarily want to hear from the Attorney General. The question has been asked, and he is giving the answer. I formally call to order for the first time the member for Collie-Preston and the member for Albany. Mr C.C. PORTER : I think I was at the point at which I was outlining the Information Commissioner’s preliminary views, to which a response was sought. One of those preliminary views was — · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work involved in dealing with the application. To those preliminary views, Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich got a chance to respond, and this was her response. Do members want to hear the response? Government members: Yes! Mr C.C. PORTER : Okay. The response to the Information Commissioner was as follows — · The complainant’s position as a former Minister cannot be taken into account in dealing with any access applications made by her, given that her duties as a Shadow Minister and a Member of the Western Australian Parliament render her too busy to deal with each individual access application personally. The daily business of the access application is the responsibility of the complainant’s research officer who has not previously worked in a Ministerial office and who is not aware of the amount of work that an access application would entail. · The Minister took advantage — This is the submission that was sent back to the Information Commissioner — · The Minister took advantage of the lack of knowledge of the complainant’s research officer by not supplying enough information to enable her to make an educated decision on the scope of the access application and by not providing enough advice to enable her to make the correct decision. I took advantage of a person I did not know existed! A person cannot create the problem and then complain about it. I will be meeting with the Information Commissioner to see what we can do to expedite the procedures. However, complaints of this nature are absolutely ridiculous. Point of Order Mr J.C. KOBELKE : Mr Speaker, I appreciate that under standing orders question time is something that is totally within your control, but I think it is appropriate that I put to you that the Attorney General taking more than nine minutes to answer a dorothy dixer could perhaps be considered an abuse of question time, or it might simply be that the Attorney General is under the misapprehension that, as a lawyer, he gets paid for the amount of time he wastes. The SPEAKER : Members will have observed in previous question times that I am quite prepared to implement a range of measures, such as to sit members down or to shorten question time. I appreciate what the member for Balcatta said.
Mr C.C. PORTER : Does the Leader of the Opposition have any evidence that there has been — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order! Members on my left might have suggestions about how the Attorney General should be answering this question. My preference at this point is to hear from the Attorney General. Mr C.C. PORTER : I refer to request 20080068. The request was for all documents and correspondence within the Premier’s office requested and received from agencies other than the Department of Industry and Resources and the Department of the Premier and Cabinet. That really narrows it down. How long would it take to deal with one of those matters? We must take a look at the environment in which we have been placed, and read the media statements released by Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich. She states — It was also revealed that 40 per cent of complaints received over the past year were complaints made against Ministers’ offices. That is quite right, but again I draw attention to the quality of those complaints. I advise members present to read the recent decision of the Office of the Information Commissioner, reference number D0172009, which is online. It was a complaint about the refusal of my office to deal with a request from Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich on 6 March 2009, which read — “I wish to gain access to the following information from the 23rd September 2008: · Your diary · Your daily itinerary documents; and · Documents detailing the expenditure on your Ministerial credit card”. Mr E.S. Ripper : We always gave out that information when in government, but you refused. Open, accountable, honest—not. Mr C.C. PORTER : It is interesting, is it not? In those circumstances, I was happy to narrow the request. I gave advice back to Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich’s office to narrow that request, but that was the subject of a complaint. The Information Commissioner made some statements about that complaint. In a preliminary opinion, for which he sought response, he stated — · It is reasonable to expect that, as a former Minister of the State Government, the complainant is well versed in the amount of work involved in dealing with her application and the ways in which it could be reduced to a manageable level. Both as the recipient of FOI access applications and as an FOI access applicant, the complainant has considerable experience and knowledge in the workings of the FOI Act. · The assistance provided by the Minister’s office to change the scope of the complainant’s access application was reasonable in the circumstances. · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work — The SPEAKER : Some members might not necessarily want to hear from the Attorney General. The question has been asked, and he is giving the answer. I formally call to order for the first time the member for Collie-Preston and the member for Albany. Mr C.C. PORTER : I think I was at the point at which I was outlining the Information Commissioner’s preliminary views, to which a response was sought. One of those preliminary views was — · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work involved in dealing with the application. To those preliminary views, Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich got a chance to respond, and this was her response. Do members want to hear the response? Government members: Yes! Mr C.C. PORTER : Okay. The response to the Information Commissioner was as follows — · The complainant’s position as a former Minister cannot be taken into account in dealing with any access applications made by her, given that her duties as a Shadow Minister and a Member of the Western Australian Parliament render her too busy to deal with each individual access application personally. The daily business of the access application is the responsibility of the complainant’s research officer who has not previously worked in a Ministerial office and who is not aware of the amount of work that an access application would entail. · The Minister took advantage — This is the submission that was sent back to the Information Commissioner — · The Minister took advantage of the lack of knowledge of the complainant’s research officer by not supplying enough information to enable her to make an educated decision on the scope of the access application and by not providing enough advice to enable her to make the correct decision. I took advantage of a person I did not know existed! A person cannot create the problem and then complain about it. I will be meeting with the Information Commissioner to see what we can do to expedite the procedures. However, complaints of this nature are absolutely ridiculous. Point of Order Mr J.C. KOBELKE : Mr Speaker, I appreciate that under standing orders question time is something that is totally within your control, but I think it is appropriate that I put to you that the Attorney General taking more than nine minutes to answer a dorothy dixer could perhaps be considered an abuse of question time, or it might simply be that the Attorney General is under the misapprehension that, as a lawyer, he gets paid for the amount of time he wastes. The SPEAKER : Members will have observed in previous question times that I am quite prepared to implement a range of measures, such as to sit members down or to shorten question time. I appreciate what the member for Balcatta said.
Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order! Members on my left might have suggestions about how the Attorney General should be answering this question. My preference at this point is to hear from the Attorney General. Mr C.C. PORTER : I refer to request 20080068. The request was for all documents and correspondence within the Premier’s office requested and received from agencies other than the Department of Industry and Resources and the Department of the Premier and Cabinet. That really narrows it down. How long would it take to deal with one of those matters? We must take a look at the environment in which we have been placed, and read the media statements released by Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich. She states — It was also revealed that 40 per cent of complaints received over the past year were complaints made against Ministers’ offices. That is quite right, but again I draw attention to the quality of those complaints. I advise members present to read the recent decision of the Office of the Information Commissioner, reference number D0172009, which is online. It was a complaint about the refusal of my office to deal with a request from Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich on 6 March 2009, which read — “I wish to gain access to the following information from the 23rd September 2008: · Your diary · Your daily itinerary documents; and · Documents detailing the expenditure on your Ministerial credit card”. Mr E.S. Ripper : We always gave out that information when in government, but you refused. Open, accountable, honest—not. Mr C.C. PORTER : It is interesting, is it not? In those circumstances, I was happy to narrow the request. I gave advice back to Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich’s office to narrow that request, but that was the subject of a complaint. The Information Commissioner made some statements about that complaint. In a preliminary opinion, for which he sought response, he stated — · It is reasonable to expect that, as a former Minister of the State Government, the complainant is well versed in the amount of work involved in dealing with her application and the ways in which it could be reduced to a manageable level. Both as the recipient of FOI access applications and as an FOI access applicant, the complainant has considerable experience and knowledge in the workings of the FOI Act. · The assistance provided by the Minister’s office to change the scope of the complainant’s access application was reasonable in the circumstances. · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work — The SPEAKER : Some members might not necessarily want to hear from the Attorney General. The question has been asked, and he is giving the answer. I formally call to order for the first time the member for Collie-Preston and the member for Albany. Mr C.C. PORTER : I think I was at the point at which I was outlining the Information Commissioner’s preliminary views, to which a response was sought. One of those preliminary views was — · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work involved in dealing with the application. To those preliminary views, Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich got a chance to respond, and this was her response. Do members want to hear the response? Government members: Yes! Mr C.C. PORTER : Okay. The response to the Information Commissioner was as follows — · The complainant’s position as a former Minister cannot be taken into account in dealing with any access applications made by her, given that her duties as a Shadow Minister and a Member of the Western Australian Parliament render her too busy to deal with each individual access application personally. The daily business of the access application is the responsibility of the complainant’s research officer who has not previously worked in a Ministerial office and who is not aware of the amount of work that an access application would entail. · The Minister took advantage — This is the submission that was sent back to the Information Commissioner — · The Minister took advantage of the lack of knowledge of the complainant’s research officer by not supplying enough information to enable her to make an educated decision on the scope of the access application and by not providing enough advice to enable her to make the correct decision. I took advantage of a person I did not know existed! A person cannot create the problem and then complain about it. I will be meeting with the Information Commissioner to see what we can do to expedite the procedures. However, complaints of this nature are absolutely ridiculous. Point of Order Mr J.C. KOBELKE : Mr Speaker, I appreciate that under standing orders question time is something that is totally within your control, but I think it is appropriate that I put to you that the Attorney General taking more than nine minutes to answer a dorothy dixer could perhaps be considered an abuse of question time, or it might simply be that the Attorney General is under the misapprehension that, as a lawyer, he gets paid for the amount of time he wastes. The SPEAKER : Members will have observed in previous question times that I am quite prepared to implement a range of measures, such as to sit members down or to shorten question time. I appreciate what the member for Balcatta said.
The SPEAKER : Order! Members on my left might have suggestions about how the Attorney General should be answering this question. My preference at this point is to hear from the Attorney General. Mr C.C. PORTER : I refer to request 20080068. The request was for all documents and correspondence within the Premier’s office requested and received from agencies other than the Department of Industry and Resources and the Department of the Premier and Cabinet. That really narrows it down. How long would it take to deal with one of those matters? We must take a look at the environment in which we have been placed, and read the media statements released by Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich. She states — It was also revealed that 40 per cent of complaints received over the past year were complaints made against Ministers’ offices. That is quite right, but again I draw attention to the quality of those complaints. I advise members present to read the recent decision of the Office of the Information Commissioner, reference number D0172009, which is online. It was a complaint about the refusal of my office to deal with a request from Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich on 6 March 2009, which read — “I wish to gain access to the following information from the 23rd September 2008: · Your diary · Your daily itinerary documents; and · Documents detailing the expenditure on your Ministerial credit card”. Mr E.S. Ripper : We always gave out that information when in government, but you refused. Open, accountable, honest—not. Mr C.C. PORTER : It is interesting, is it not? In those circumstances, I was happy to narrow the request. I gave advice back to Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich’s office to narrow that request, but that was the subject of a complaint. The Information Commissioner made some statements about that complaint. In a preliminary opinion, for which he sought response, he stated — · It is reasonable to expect that, as a former Minister of the State Government, the complainant is well versed in the amount of work involved in dealing with her application and the ways in which it could be reduced to a manageable level. Both as the recipient of FOI access applications and as an FOI access applicant, the complainant has considerable experience and knowledge in the workings of the FOI Act. · The assistance provided by the Minister’s office to change the scope of the complainant’s access application was reasonable in the circumstances. · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work — The SPEAKER : Some members might not necessarily want to hear from the Attorney General. The question has been asked, and he is giving the answer. I formally call to order for the first time the member for Collie-Preston and the member for Albany. Mr C.C. PORTER : I think I was at the point at which I was outlining the Information Commissioner’s preliminary views, to which a response was sought. One of those preliminary views was — · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work involved in dealing with the application. To those preliminary views, Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich got a chance to respond, and this was her response. Do members want to hear the response? Government members: Yes! Mr C.C. PORTER : Okay. The response to the Information Commissioner was as follows — · The complainant’s position as a former Minister cannot be taken into account in dealing with any access applications made by her, given that her duties as a Shadow Minister and a Member of the Western Australian Parliament render her too busy to deal with each individual access application personally. The daily business of the access application is the responsibility of the complainant’s research officer who has not previously worked in a Ministerial office and who is not aware of the amount of work that an access application would entail. · The Minister took advantage — This is the submission that was sent back to the Information Commissioner — · The Minister took advantage of the lack of knowledge of the complainant’s research officer by not supplying enough information to enable her to make an educated decision on the scope of the access application and by not providing enough advice to enable her to make the correct decision. I took advantage of a person I did not know existed! A person cannot create the problem and then complain about it. I will be meeting with the Information Commissioner to see what we can do to expedite the procedures. However, complaints of this nature are absolutely ridiculous. Point of Order Mr J.C. KOBELKE : Mr Speaker, I appreciate that under standing orders question time is something that is totally within your control, but I think it is appropriate that I put to you that the Attorney General taking more than nine minutes to answer a dorothy dixer could perhaps be considered an abuse of question time, or it might simply be that the Attorney General is under the misapprehension that, as a lawyer, he gets paid for the amount of time he wastes. The SPEAKER : Members will have observed in previous question times that I am quite prepared to implement a range of measures, such as to sit members down or to shorten question time. I appreciate what the member for Balcatta said.
Mr C.C. PORTER : I refer to request 20080068. The request was for all documents and correspondence within the Premier’s office requested and received from agencies other than the Department of Industry and Resources and the Department of the Premier and Cabinet. That really narrows it down. How long would it take to deal with one of those matters? We must take a look at the environment in which we have been placed, and read the media statements released by Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich. She states — It was also revealed that 40 per cent of complaints received over the past year were complaints made against Ministers’ offices. That is quite right, but again I draw attention to the quality of those complaints. I advise members present to read the recent decision of the Office of the Information Commissioner, reference number D0172009, which is online. It was a complaint about the refusal of my office to deal with a request from Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich on 6 March 2009, which read — “I wish to gain access to the following information from the 23rd September 2008: · Your diary · Your daily itinerary documents; and · Documents detailing the expenditure on your Ministerial credit card”. Mr E.S. Ripper : We always gave out that information when in government, but you refused. Open, accountable, honest—not. Mr C.C. PORTER : It is interesting, is it not? In those circumstances, I was happy to narrow the request. I gave advice back to Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich’s office to narrow that request, but that was the subject of a complaint. The Information Commissioner made some statements about that complaint. In a preliminary opinion, for which he sought response, he stated — · It is reasonable to expect that, as a former Minister of the State Government, the complainant is well versed in the amount of work involved in dealing with her application and the ways in which it could be reduced to a manageable level. Both as the recipient of FOI access applications and as an FOI access applicant, the complainant has considerable experience and knowledge in the workings of the FOI Act. · The assistance provided by the Minister’s office to change the scope of the complainant’s access application was reasonable in the circumstances. · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work — The SPEAKER : Some members might not necessarily want to hear from the Attorney General. The question has been asked, and he is giving the answer. I formally call to order for the first time the member for Collie-Preston and the member for Albany. Mr C.C. PORTER : I think I was at the point at which I was outlining the Information Commissioner’s preliminary views, to which a response was sought. One of those preliminary views was — · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work involved in dealing with the application. To those preliminary views, Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich got a chance to respond, and this was her response. Do members want to hear the response? Government members: Yes! Mr C.C. PORTER : Okay. The response to the Information Commissioner was as follows — · The complainant’s position as a former Minister cannot be taken into account in dealing with any access applications made by her, given that her duties as a Shadow Minister and a Member of the Western Australian Parliament render her too busy to deal with each individual access application personally. The daily business of the access application is the responsibility of the complainant’s research officer who has not previously worked in a Ministerial office and who is not aware of the amount of work that an access application would entail. · The Minister took advantage — This is the submission that was sent back to the Information Commissioner — · The Minister took advantage of the lack of knowledge of the complainant’s research officer by not supplying enough information to enable her to make an educated decision on the scope of the access application and by not providing enough advice to enable her to make the correct decision. I took advantage of a person I did not know existed! A person cannot create the problem and then complain about it. I will be meeting with the Information Commissioner to see what we can do to expedite the procedures. However, complaints of this nature are absolutely ridiculous. Point of Order Mr J.C. KOBELKE : Mr Speaker, I appreciate that under standing orders question time is something that is totally within your control, but I think it is appropriate that I put to you that the Attorney General taking more than nine minutes to answer a dorothy dixer could perhaps be considered an abuse of question time, or it might simply be that the Attorney General is under the misapprehension that, as a lawyer, he gets paid for the amount of time he wastes. The SPEAKER : Members will have observed in previous question times that I am quite prepared to implement a range of measures, such as to sit members down or to shorten question time. I appreciate what the member for Balcatta said.
· Your diary · Your daily itinerary documents; and · Documents detailing the expenditure on your Ministerial credit card”.
· Your daily itinerary documents; and · Documents detailing the expenditure on your Ministerial credit card”.
· Documents detailing the expenditure on your Ministerial credit card”.
Mr C.C. PORTER : It is interesting, is it not? In those circumstances, I was happy to narrow the request. I gave advice back to Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich’s office to narrow that request, but that was the subject of a complaint. The Information Commissioner made some statements about that complaint. In a preliminary opinion, for which he sought response, he stated — · It is reasonable to expect that, as a former Minister of the State Government, the complainant is well versed in the amount of work involved in dealing with her application and the ways in which it could be reduced to a manageable level. Both as the recipient of FOI access applications and as an FOI access applicant, the complainant has considerable experience and knowledge in the workings of the FOI Act. · The assistance provided by the Minister’s office to change the scope of the complainant’s access application was reasonable in the circumstances. · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work — The SPEAKER : Some members might not necessarily want to hear from the Attorney General. The question has been asked, and he is giving the answer. I formally call to order for the first time the member for Collie-Preston and the member for Albany. Mr C.C. PORTER : I think I was at the point at which I was outlining the Information Commissioner’s preliminary views, to which a response was sought. One of those preliminary views was — · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work involved in dealing with the application. To those preliminary views, Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich got a chance to respond, and this was her response. Do members want to hear the response? Government members: Yes! Mr C.C. PORTER : Okay. The response to the Information Commissioner was as follows — · The complainant’s position as a former Minister cannot be taken into account in dealing with any access applications made by her, given that her duties as a Shadow Minister and a Member of the Western Australian Parliament render her too busy to deal with each individual access application personally. The daily business of the access application is the responsibility of the complainant’s research officer who has not previously worked in a Ministerial office and who is not aware of the amount of work that an access application would entail. · The Minister took advantage — This is the submission that was sent back to the Information Commissioner — · The Minister took advantage of the lack of knowledge of the complainant’s research officer by not supplying enough information to enable her to make an educated decision on the scope of the access application and by not providing enough advice to enable her to make the correct decision. I took advantage of a person I did not know existed! A person cannot create the problem and then complain about it. I will be meeting with the Information Commissioner to see what we can do to expedite the procedures. However, complaints of this nature are absolutely ridiculous. Point of Order Mr J.C. KOBELKE : Mr Speaker, I appreciate that under standing orders question time is something that is totally within your control, but I think it is appropriate that I put to you that the Attorney General taking more than nine minutes to answer a dorothy dixer could perhaps be considered an abuse of question time, or it might simply be that the Attorney General is under the misapprehension that, as a lawyer, he gets paid for the amount of time he wastes. The SPEAKER : Members will have observed in previous question times that I am quite prepared to implement a range of measures, such as to sit members down or to shorten question time. I appreciate what the member for Balcatta said.
· The assistance provided by the Minister’s office to change the scope of the complainant’s access application was reasonable in the circumstances. · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work —
· The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work —
Mr C.C. PORTER : I think I was at the point at which I was outlining the Information Commissioner’s preliminary views, to which a response was sought. One of those preliminary views was — · The complainant’s proposal to change the terms of the application increased, rather than reduced, the amount of work involved in dealing with the application. To those preliminary views, Hon Ljiljanna Ravlich got a chance to respond, and this was her response. Do members want to hear the response? Government members: Yes! Mr C.C. PORTER : Okay. The response to the Information Commissioner was as follows — · The complainant’s position as a former Minister cannot be taken into account in dealing with any access applications made by her, given that her duties as a Shadow Minister and a Member of the Western Australian Parliament render her too busy to deal with each individual access application personally. The daily business of the access application is the responsibility of the complainant’s research officer who has not previously worked in a Ministerial office and who is not aware of the amount of work that an access application would entail. · The Minister took advantage — This is the submission that was sent back to the Information Commissioner — · The Minister took advantage of the lack of knowledge of the complainant’s research officer by not supplying enough information to enable her to make an educated decision on the scope of the access application and by not providing enough advice to enable her to make the correct decision. I took advantage of a person I did not know existed! A person cannot create the problem and then complain about it. I will be meeting with the Information Commissioner to see what we can do to expedite the procedures. However, complaints of this nature are absolutely ridiculous. Point of Order Mr J.C. KOBELKE : Mr Speaker, I appreciate that under standing orders question time is something that is totally within your control, but I think it is appropriate that I put to you that the Attorney General taking more than nine minutes to answer a dorothy dixer could perhaps be considered an abuse of question time, or it might simply be that the Attorney General is under the misapprehension that, as a lawyer, he gets paid for the amount of time he wastes. The SPEAKER : Members will have observed in previous question times that I am quite prepared to implement a range of measures, such as to sit members down or to shorten question time. I appreciate what the member for Balcatta said.
Government members: Yes! Mr C.C. PORTER : Okay. The response to the Information Commissioner was as follows — · The complainant’s position as a former Minister cannot be taken into account in dealing with any access applications made by her, given that her duties as a Shadow Minister and a Member of the Western Australian Parliament render her too busy to deal with each individual access application personally. The daily business of the access application is the responsibility of the complainant’s research officer who has not previously worked in a Ministerial office and who is not aware of the amount of work that an access application would entail. · The Minister took advantage — This is the submission that was sent back to the Information Commissioner — · The Minister took advantage of the lack of knowledge of the complainant’s research officer by not supplying enough information to enable her to make an educated decision on the scope of the access application and by not providing enough advice to enable her to make the correct decision. I took advantage of a person I did not know existed! A person cannot create the problem and then complain about it. I will be meeting with the Information Commissioner to see what we can do to expedite the procedures. However, complaints of this nature are absolutely ridiculous. Point of Order Mr J.C. KOBELKE : Mr Speaker, I appreciate that under standing orders question time is something that is totally within your control, but I think it is appropriate that I put to you that the Attorney General taking more than nine minutes to answer a dorothy dixer could perhaps be considered an abuse of question time, or it might simply be that the Attorney General is under the misapprehension that, as a lawyer, he gets paid for the amount of time he wastes. The SPEAKER : Members will have observed in previous question times that I am quite prepared to implement a range of measures, such as to sit members down or to shorten question time. I appreciate what the member for Balcatta said.
Mr C.C. PORTER : Okay. The response to the Information Commissioner was as follows — · The complainant’s position as a former Minister cannot be taken into account in dealing with any access applications made by her, given that her duties as a Shadow Minister and a Member of the Western Australian Parliament render her too busy to deal with each individual access application personally. The daily business of the access application is the responsibility of the complainant’s research officer who has not previously worked in a Ministerial office and who is not aware of the amount of work that an access application would entail. · The Minister took advantage — This is the submission that was sent back to the Information Commissioner — · The Minister took advantage of the lack of knowledge of the complainant’s research officer by not supplying enough information to enable her to make an educated decision on the scope of the access application and by not providing enough advice to enable her to make the correct decision. I took advantage of a person I did not know existed! A person cannot create the problem and then complain about it. I will be meeting with the Information Commissioner to see what we can do to expedite the procedures. However, complaints of this nature are absolutely ridiculous. Point of Order Mr J.C. KOBELKE : Mr Speaker, I appreciate that under standing orders question time is something that is totally within your control, but I think it is appropriate that I put to you that the Attorney General taking more than nine minutes to answer a dorothy dixer could perhaps be considered an abuse of question time, or it might simply be that the Attorney General is under the misapprehension that, as a lawyer, he gets paid for the amount of time he wastes. The SPEAKER : Members will have observed in previous question times that I am quite prepared to implement a range of measures, such as to sit members down or to shorten question time. I appreciate what the member for Balcatta said.
· The Minister took advantage —
The SPEAKER : Members will have observed in previous question times that I am quite prepared to implement a range of measures, such as to sit members down or to shorten question time. I appreciate what the member for Balcatta said.
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