Aussie Cabinet documents FOI exemptions to be narrowed

Cabinet documents not exempt under FoI

March 25, 2009 - 9:14AM

Documents marked "cabinet in confidence" won't necessarily remain confidential and exempt from Freedom of Information (FoI) laws.

And wheeling documents in and out of the cabinet room just to keep them secret is out, says Special Minister of State John Faulkner.

Senator Faulkner on Monday outlined sweeping FoI changes, honouring a Labor election commitment.

The changes made clear that documents could not be kept secret simply by marking them "cabinet in confidence".

That term will be narrowed so that it only applied to documents prepared for the dominant purpose of submissions to cabinet.

FULL ARTICLE