Legal academic Prof Reece Walters from Deakin University has criticised Australia’s freedom of information regime after spending two and a half years trying to shed light on the government’s efforts to keep the Great Barrier Reef from being labelled as “in danger”.
Despite a group of Australian and US environmental lawyers determining that the GBR easily met the criteria to be listed as “in danger” by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, officials from the Australian government spent over $100,000 to successfully lobby the committee against the move.
Prof Walters says the current FOI setup is far less transparent than other nations and is too complex for anyone to understand without extensive knowledge of the system.