Peter Timmins, FOI and privacy protection expert, comments on the Rudd Government’s recent efforts at delivering open government:
as the opposition and some media commentators have noted, the government’s reticence to provide information about the advice or forecasts that underpinned decisions to guarantee deposits in financial institutions and bank borrowing from abroad, and to deliver a fiscal stimulus package involving $10.4 billion in taxpayers money, is a far cry from all the claims that this government would be different when it came to open government.In fact it’s a bit like the “if only you knew what I knew you would surely agree” line used frequently throughout history, but three examples come to mind: by former Immigration Minister Andrews last year to justify cancelling Dr Haneef’s visa, aspects of the case for war in Iraq presented to us in 2003, and by President Johnson way back in 1964 to get the US Congress to authorise the commitment of ground forces to Vietnam after what turned out to be a false claim of an attack on US vessels in the Gulf of Tonkin.
