What's the Minister for Energy and Resources been up to? I submitted an OIA request for their weekly ministerial briefings. They responded by claiming they were "confidential advice" and refusing to release them. I complained to the Ombudsman, and the Minister has issued a partial release. But she is still withholding all briefings from December as "confidential", even though a quick glance at the released material makes it clear that much of it (e.g. lists of meetings, lists of briefings received, lists of mining permits approved) is not advice and is not covered by that section. So I guess its not just a matter of waiting for the Ombudsman to educate the Minister about the law and the requirement to assess everything line by line on its merits and weigh the interest in withholding against the public interest in release, rather than trying to pretend that there's a class-based exemption allowing Ministers to keep secret anything they've seen for three months.
Meanwhile, while we wait for that, here's the Minister's briefings for November 2017:
- Energy and Resources Weekly Report - 6 November 2017
- Energy and Resources Weekly Report - 13 November 2017
- Energy and Resources Weekly Report - 20 November 2017
- Energy and Resources Weekly Report - 27 November 2017
