Freedom of Information Amendment Bill 2025 - MEAA
This submission relates to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee’s inquiry into the Freedom of Information (FOI) Amendment Bill 2025.
In this submission, MEAA argues that the government’s proposed reforms would result in serious detriment to the public interest. They would make the federal FOI system less accessible, knock out all but the simplest requests, shield more documents from the public, and undermine the work of journalists and whistleblowers. As such, MEAA opposes the passing of this Bill in its current form.
In particular, MEAA takes issue with the introduction of a fee for FOI requests, the proposed ban on anonymous and pseudonymous FOI requests, the blanket refusal for applications that take more than 40 hours to process, the introduction of agency powers to dismiss requests deemed vexatious, abusive or frivolous, the expansion of exemptions for Cabinet documents, and the extension of days permitted to consider an FOI request.
Freedom of Information Amendment Bill 2025 - MEAA - 2/10/2025
Last update: October 7, 2025
