Since the resumption of Parliament, the Labour-led government has been engaged in a war on transparency, refusing to answer even the most basic and specific written questions, while denying OIA requests on blatantly unlawful grounds. But one good sign is that Speaker of the House Trevor Mallard wants them to stop playing silly buggers and start answering questions:
Speaker Trevor Mallard has put both sides of Parliament on notice in the war over written questions, warning them he expects a higher standard once the House resumes in 2018.
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“I think it’s fair to say I wouldn’t be happy if the current approach from either side continued in the long term ... I don’t want us to be in this situation after Christmas.”
While he says Labour's refusals are "within standing orders" (because standing orders basicly leave it entirely up to the Minister how to respond, and forbid any inquiry into those responses), he's also clear that the information should be released. And on that front, he's supporting automatic, proactive release:
However, he described written questions as “sort of like a last resort”, and instead believed it would be better to establish an automated method of releasing information.
“There was a strong view [in past discussions] that if you could get a system that was pretty much automatic, transparent, didn’t require application, then that would be better.
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“Eventually getting some websites going which contain most of that material, for example, Cabinet papers two months after they’ve been to Cabinet automatically up unless there’s a good reason not to, just that sort of stuff would mean you’d have a lot of access to, actually quite boring information, but access to what's going on.”
I agree. Ministerial diaries, briefing lists, Cabinet and committee agendas, and the papers should all automatically be made public, with redactions only where necessary and according to the scheme of the OIA (so they can be challenged and reviewed by the Ombudsman). And these would certainly remove a huge number of mundane requests (while enabling specific ones... which is what the government doesn't want). Unfortunately, none of this falls under Mallard's powers as Speaker. But if he wants to push for it, the way to do it is to read Ministers the riot act and force them to answer written questions, so that it will be less fucking work to proactively release everything than it is to try and refuse it.
