A bill being introduced in the ACT Legislative Assembly could see cabinet documents released within 30 days, rather than a decade later.

Canberra Liberals Leader Elizabeth Lee will tomorrow (September 20) present the Freedom of Information Amendment Bill 2022 which would require most papers considered by the territory’s cabinet to be made publicly available within 30 business days of a cabinet decision.

Currently cabinet materials in the ACT are released on Canberra Day, a decade after the record’s submission date.

Lee said the bill would enhance the public’s confidence in government by making it more “transparent”.

“A culture of secrecy fostered by this Labor-Greens government that has been in power for 21 years and routinely hides their failures from the public by refusing Freedom of Information requests on the grounds they contain cabinet material,” she said,

“Just last week we saw a damning report handed down by the Auditor-General on the procurement and contracting activities for the Acton Waterfront Project that among many problems highlighted the lack of information publicly available on the project.

“This comes on the back of the recent Campbell Primary Modernisation Project that was also slammed by the Auditor General for a lack of probity and the murky CIT contracts that saw almost $9 million paid to one contractor.”

Lee said there will be exemptions if the public release of information could endanger a person’s life, limit a person’s rights, prejudice an ongoing criminal investigation, or disclose information contrary to the public interest.

“This same policy has been operating in New Zealand since 2018, which is a unicameral jurisdiction like our own and the Queensland Labor government recently agreed to this measure following a scathing integrity review,” said Lee.