Just as the United Kingdom is facing an election, let’s reflect on politics in Australia. Many governments around the world are criticized for their lack of transparency and for leaving the public in the dark. A wordy research text by Australian Greg Terrill called Secrecy and Openness: The Federal Government from Menzies to Whitlam and Beyond, traces the history of political disclosure, concealment and propaganda in the Australian Government from the 1960s.
Prime Minister, Robert Menzies had a preference for an almost publicly introverted administration. This changed with the 1970s style of both the liberal and labor governments in Australia, particularly in the Gough Whitlam and Bob Hawke years where open government was a priority.
Menzies’ legendary exploitation of the fear of communism provided his rationale for a secretive government. Terrill argues that some secrecy may have been necessary at the time and could still be justifiable in some sections of the current government.
The Department of Media in the Whitlam government was responsible for the new open government policy. How ironic then that it was the only department where Terrill had no access to archived files – because there were none. Although an archival policy existed and was mandatory, no files were archived. Apart from these files, Terrill had significant access to secret documents and to past and present public servants. Although, where one department refused access to files, another would grant access to the same files. Curiously, the first place he found information about Australia’s Department of Defense was in America!
Terrill outlines two defining moments in Australian politics when secrecy and openness were brought into the public arena:
(1) The 1972 election when Gough Whitlam contested and beat liberal William McMahon. It was the first time an opposition party was advocating an open government: “The Australian Labor Party will build into the administration of the affairs of this nation machinery that will prevent any government … from …cloaking the affairs under excessive and needless secrecy”, said Whitlam.
(2) The freedom-of-information legislation brought in by liberal Malcolm Fraser in 1982.
Terrill’s biggest surprise was that the book could be written at all!
Today in the Australian government there are very open departments, quite willing to reveal information. One such department is the Taxation Office.
A part-time Canberra taxi-driver was required to get an Australian Business Number (ABN) from the Tax Office. Although his business was not really a company, he provided his name as the trading name and his mobile telephone number. This phone number is not publicly listed and he does not use it for his work as a taxi-driver. The Tax Office was the only government department that was given the mobile number.
Soon afterwards, he received a call on his mobile from a person selling insurance. When asked how the number was obtained, the insurance seller said that he received it from the Tax Office. The taxi-driver approached the Tax Office for a response to this claim. The Tax Office initially denied selling his ABN information. The taxi-driver took this a step further and complained to the Department of Consumer Affairs. Under pressure, the Tax Office then admitted to selling the postal and email addresses of 10,000 companies to an insurance company and to the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. So it was quite open in revealing information. The problem was, it was other people’s private information!
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