Earlier this year, just ahead of the federal election, I emailed some routine questions to Home Affairs. I was planning an article for Inside Story about the challenge for an incoming immigration minister of a growing backlog of applications for partner and parent visas.
The data I sought covered the number of applications on hand in each category at the end of April. I asked the media team to get back to me by 9 May, the Friday after the election. A reply acknowledged my request and noted my deadline, but by 12 May I’d heard nothing. I emailed again and was reassured a response was being worked on and I’d be hearing back soon.
The next day, in fact, when an email from the department fobbed me off with links to the general migration statistics on the Home Affairs website and the federal government’s data portal. I diligently trawled the sites, with which I was familiar, and confirmed they didn’t answer my questions.
A few days later I wrote again, renewing my request. This time, a Home Affairs media officer rang to tell me the data was not available. I politely pointed out that this was bunkum because the latest statistics on the number of visa applications awaiting processing are sent to ministerial offices on a weekly or monthly basis. It would be a waste of my time and Home Affairs resources to compel me to submit an FOI application.
The officer undertook to refer the matter up the chain. A few more days elapsed, I sent another reminder email, and on 20 May I was told the links I’d previously been sent had the most recent publicly available data.
I immediately submitted an FOI request. The response was swift. An authorised FOI officer told me the following day that my request had been “de-registered.” I was no longer entitled to seek data under the FOI Act because it was available for purchase by the public via the department’s new dedicated channel for data.
This was news to me (and something Home Affairs media had failed to mention). I followed the provided link to the requesting statistics webpage to find that I would need to pay $30 per question. I filled in the form and got a response the next day, advising that if I paid the necessary fees, the data team would try to finalise my request within thirty business days. I considered seeking an exemption from the charges on the basis that this was a matter of public interest (an exemption available under FOI laws) but figured this would only delay matters further.
I transferred the necessary funds to Home Affairs and — a month later, on 24 June — I finally received the information I’d requested eight weeks earlier.
By now, of course, it was out of date. Still, I was able to write my article, even if the election was now long behind us. And I was pleased to know that next time I want to revise those visa statistics I could bypass reluctant media officers and go straight to the data team with my requests — albeit at $30 a pop.
I’d been given a similar runaround seeking data on parent visas in 2024, just after Tony Burke took over the Home Affairs portfolio. The previous year, by contrast, I’d received a relatively prompt response to the same request.
Having spent decades writing about migration and periodically requesting information from the department, I’ve seen departmental openness wax and wane according to the political climate and changes in personnel. Sometimes my questions are swiftly answered. Sometimes they are delayed or denied. In Australia, freedom of information is more arbitrary than systematic.
But matters could get worse. Attorney-general Michelle Rowland this week introduced a bill to “modernise” the FOI system. It would mandate fees for certain types of request and restrict access to “deliberative processes.” As ABC political reporter Tom Crowley wrote on Wednesday, this potentially extends the FOI exemption covering cabinet documents to include “anything that has been brought to cabinet’s attention or might inform something that is shown to cabinet in future” or any document “in which ministers, public servants or other officials record their thoughts about policy.”
It’s a far cry from the robodebt royal commission’s call to repeal Section 34 of the FOI Act so cabinet documents are only kept confidential when there is an identifiable public interest reason for doing so.
The attorney-general argues FOI reform is needed because digital automation means “large volumes of vague, anonymous, vexatious or frivolous requests” are tying up time and resources. But as Maria O’Sullivan from Deakin University argues, this could also be tackled by greater use of “proactive disclosure.” Personal information, for example, would be released directly to the people to which the it pertains without requiring them to use FOI.
The same applies to many journalistic requests. Statistical information, like the number of partner visa applications on hand at Home Affairs, could be published online in timely updates, just as it is regularly supplied to ministerial offices.
Charging for statistical information on a case-by-case basis is more cumbersome, time-consuming and inefficient — especially when, according to government policies, the data should be public anyway.
In its May 2023 data and digital strategy, the Albanese government offered the vision of delivering “simple, secure and connected public services” by 2030. One sign of success would be “greater usability and availability of government-held data” As a journalist and researcher, I was excited by the commitment that “all government entities” would “make non-sensitive data open by default, in compliance with relevant laws and appropriate privacy, security and ethical controls for sharing sensitive data.”
Statistics on growing backlogs in visa processing might be embarrassing and uncomfortable for government ministers, but they are of public interest. And they are in no way “sensitive”: they raise no privacy, national security, confidentiality or ethical concerns. The same applies to reams of other government data in other policy areas.
If the government is serious about modernising freedom of information, then it should live up to its data and digital ambitions and routinely publish statistics online in a timely manner. •
