depa’s appeal over OLG denying access to information heard in NCAT on 19 August

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Published: Thursday, 25 August 2022 16:30

In the context of an independent review of the current OLG’s framework of how they manage complaints against councillor behaviour, there is clearly no time like the present to highlight the unacceptable secrecy that surrounds the way the OLG does business. That must change. Not enough transparency, too much cover-up.

This is an old story, a complaint against a miscreant councillor on Wagga Wagga Council, a serial offender, was investigated by OLG. Based upon that investigation, an order was made by the former CEO Tim Hurst which included an inaccuracy at paragraph 20, when it was said that the councillor had no previous complaints, nor anything else in the pipeline.

That’s factually incorrect. We provided evidence to Mr Hurst/OLG at the time and were ignored, made application under the GIPA Act to try to understand how after the investigation, that finding could be made, but were rebuffed because the GIPA Act excludes virtually everything OLG doesn’t want to disclose about their investigations. Critical to our case was our view that we didn’t want to see the investigation details, but whatever report had been prepared for the CEO and how that allowed him to make that fundamental error. The OLG has a discretion to provide information but on this occasion chose not to do so.

We lost it in the first instance in NCAT, opposed by a barrister for OLG and a barrister for the Information and Privacy Commissioner. It must be hard representing the IPC, as their barrister likes to call it (because it must be difficult to say you represent an “information” Commissioner when you are arguing against access to information) flouting the expectation of the Premier at the time that this new piece of legislation would be “best practice” in providing access to the public to government decision-making. The IPC barrister was able to establish in both the first case and in the appeal, that there can be no government authority more appropriately described as having an Orwellian title.

The appeal was heard by a panel of three tribunal members and a decision is reserved.