Tuesday 26th of November 2024
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open government .....

open government .....

The NSW Ombudsman has failed to follow through on threats he would review the state's Freedom of Information Act despite latest figures showing that NSW continues to lag behind the rest of the country in releasing documents sought under the law. 

The NSW Ombudsman's annual report reveals that the percentage of freedom-of-information applications released in full in NSW dropped from 81 per cent in 1995-96 to 52 per cent in 2005-06.

In Victoria 97 per cent are granted in part or in full. 

The Ombudsman, Bruce Barbour, warned last year that he would do his own review if it meant it would force the Government to move after years of inaction, but Mr Barbour's office yesterday confirmed that no such review had been started. 

NSW The Secrets State

self-protected species...

Democracy badly suffers from secrecy and exclusion in the domain that should be the most transparent of all: the law.

Lawyers' lair protected by dragon of legal thread

Richard Ackland
February 8, 2008

The official opening of the 2008 law year last week saw celebratory feasting, prayers and perorations. Speeches lauded the "service" provided by the legal profession to the rest of society and the unstoppable force of Sydney's magnificent litigation "vortex".

So in the context of all that self-basting it is a little bit mean to now trot out some of the things that bind lawyers in an unholy conspiracy against the rest of the world.

Special lawyer indulgences, we might call them, dispensed not by the Pope but by the judges.