Australian Politics

Thanks to Opposition leader Sussan Ley, the government’s disgraceful attempt to squeeze the life out of the Freedom of Information Act is as dead as a herring.

Although the number of FoI requests has been more or less constant for a long time, some of the restrictions proposed reflect apprehensions of minister Mark Butler that many FoI requests “are AI bot generated”. But when the attorney-general’s department officials were quizzed about this at recent Estimates, the best they could say was that “some could have been supported by bots” and that “while it is difficult to be certain… an upward trend… in requests… appear to be from bots". That’s not evidence, it’s speculation and it got on Ley’s goat. She said such justification for restricting the FoI Act “is nothing more than a smokescreen".

I've been - deservedly - critical of Ley but it is very reassuring to see her Libs doing their job as an effective opposition.