Tasmania – Right to information
Rights to Information in Tasmania
Government agencies hold an enormous amount of information about each one of us personally and also of a more general kind. This information is in many forms. Personal information is contained in files, reports and computer records. General information is contained in reports, submissions, manual...
Disclosure
There are four types of disclosure defined in the Act. Only ‘assessed disclosures’ are governed by the Tasmanian Right to Information Act (hereinafter 'the Tasmanian Act'): Required disclosures, which are required by law. Annual reports are an example; Routine disclosures, made by a publi...
Right to Information Applications
The application Applications for information can be made to any public authority or Minister (s 13). The specifics of the information requested need not be known – how could the information be known before it is disclosed? The Act only requires ‘reference to the information contained in a partic...
Right to Information Decisions
Deferral or Refusal of a request The Tasmanian Act empowers decision makers to refuse a request if the request is for information that they have already made available (s12), the request unreasonably diverts resources of a public authority (s19), or the application is repeat request or vexatious...
Review of Decisions
Internal review There are two stages to the review process. The first is an internal review, and the second is an external review. Internal review can happen where a decision has been made by a delegated officer, not the principal officer – the Minister or the Principal Officer of the public aut...
Whistleblower Legislation
The Public Interest Disclosures Act 2002 (Tas) The Public Interest Disclosures Act was instituted in order to ‘encourage and facilitate disclosures of improper conduct by public officers and public bodies, to protect persons making those disclosure and others from reprisals, to provide for the m...
Page last updated 14/12/2017