Dear Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet,

The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner recently found, once again, that the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (PM&C) is corrupt by virtue of its contraventions of the FOI Act (OAIC investigation: CP21/01673). It’s yet another, in a string of findings made that PM&C regularly disregards its legal obligations under the FOI Act for plainly political reasons. See, for example, here: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-ne... and https://www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

On this particular occasion, the corruption findings stemmed from PM&C’s failure to comply with the FOI Act in respect of a FOI request relating to documents concerning the Liberal Party’s organisation of and subsequent attempts to cover up, the sexual assault of Brittany Higgins (or ‘lying cow’ as Ms Higgins is referred to by Liberal Party MPs). Compliance with the FOI Act didn’t suit the political interests of the Liberal Party and so PM&C acted illegally in accordance with the Liberal Party’s directives.

It’s telling that at all relevant times of these corruption findings being made against PM&C, Stephanie ‘nudge nudge, wink wink’ Foster has been responsible for PM&C’s compliance with the FOI Act.

Under the leadership of the Liberal Party (which includes a considerable portion of PM&C’s senior executive group), the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has transformed from being a once respected, apolitical, central agency that conducts itself with integrity - to effectively being a PR consultancy for the Liberal Party that considers its predominant role to be the covering up of corruption that this LNP Government engages in as standard practice in dealing with near every matter before it.

On any objective assessment, the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet is now little more than faecal stain on the integrity of not just the Australian Public Service, but Australia’s democracy more generally. And these ongoing corruption findings prove that a Federal ICAC with significant clout is desperately required to address the politically motivated corruption regularly engaged in by PM&C such that it does not become further entrenched across the Commonwealth public sector.

In concluding its investigation (CP21/01673) into the corruption engaged by PM&C, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, pursuant to section 86 of the FOI Act, recommended that PM&C “appoint an Information Champion by 5 November 2021. The Information Champion may be supported by an information governance board to provide leadership, oversight and accountability necessary to promote and operationalise the Department’s compliance with the FOI Act.”

Under the FOI Act, I seek a copy of any document that gives effect to the OAIC’s recommendation that PM&C appoint an ‘Information Champion’ and that identifies that Information Champion - as recommended by the OAIC as part of its investigation (CP21/01673) into PM&C's corruption.

There is significant public interest in the release of the document(s) the subject of my request because:
- the outcome of my request will determine whether PM&C has, yet again, at the direction of the Liberal Party/Phil Gaetjens, ignored the recommendations of the Office of the Information Commissioner in respect of PM&C’s corruption
- an overwhelming majority of the Australian public/taxpayers support the establishment of an independent Federal corruption commission to deal with Commonweatlh public sector corruption such as that referred to in my request and as engaged in by PM&C/Liberal Party as business as usual; and
- that will determine whether PM&C has appointed, as its ‘Information Champion’, one of the very same key senior management personnel responsible for PM&C’s corrupt administration of the FOI Act, such as P Gaetjens, S Foster, J Reid, P Garttman and P Rush, which would be like putting the fox in charge of the henhouse, or perhaps more aptly, like appointing the Hillsong Church as the peak body for early childhood education.

In processing my request I refer the decision-maker to paragraph 6.154 of the FOI Guidelines made under s.93A of the FOI Act which state:
“When considering whether it would be unreasonable to disclose the names of public servants, there is no basis under the FOI Act for agencies to start from the position that the classification level of a departmental officer determines whether his or her name would be unreasonable to disclose. In seeking to claim the exemption an agency needs to identify the special circumstances which exist rather than start from the assumption that such information is exempt.”

I note that PM&C has a standing policy that it sets out in correspondence acknowledging receipt of each FOI application made of PM&C as follows:“For documents that fall within scope of the request, it is the Department’s policy to withhold …..the names and contact details of Australian Public Service officers not in the Senior Executive Service (SES)”

Having regard to the requirements of s.9A(b) of the FOI Act, whomever at PM&C implemented that standing policy is necessarily corrupt and has engaged in disclosable conduct for the purposes of the Public Interest Disclosure Act 2013 by virtue of contravening s.9A(b) of the FOI Act and s.13(4) of the Public Service Act 1999.

Regards
F Melton

Thanks for acknowledging receipt.

I'm happy to provide further public interest rationale in response to a charges notice, access refusal or on request by reference to corruption engaged in by current and former PM&C FOI staff/Liberal Party sympathisers: Moran, Galang, Arnberg, Eissenberg, Ishani et al... just say the word.

Cheers
F Melton