Secret documents could be exposed

New FOI laws could be retrospective

When Deputy Prime Minister JULIA GILLARD addressed National Conference on April 9 she promised to deliver on reforms to Freedom of Information laws that would ensure that cover ups of conspiracies against working people like the Patrick dispute could never be repeated.

"FOI should not be left to the whim of a minister," she said. "The previous Government, with the flick of a pen, put documents out of reach and out of access - without any form of appeal."

At the same time the Deputy PM did not rule out the possibility that reforms to the FOI laws could be made retrospective. She said the Rudd Government was committed to ensuring that no FOI decisions will be quarantined from procedures for review.

"No decisions have yet been made on how our changes to the FOI laws, which will prevent conclusive certificates being issued in the future, should deal with conclusive certificates issued in the past," she told conference and the media conference that followed. "That issue needs to be considered as part of our changes to the legal framework."

The deputy PM said the MUA more than anyone knew all about John Howard's vendetta against the unions.

"We all remember the events of 1998," she said. "We should never go back to those days of confrontation. ; And we should never go back to those days when the Prime Minister and Howard Government Ministers celebrated mass sackings with high fives and backslapping. We should never go back to those days when working people were meant to be terrified into submission by men in balaclavas and snarling attack dogs."

Julia Gillard said she understood the concern of those who worry that the full history is not yet known, because the Howard Government engaged in a cover up.

"The previous government's practice of issuing conclusive certificates under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 was a practice that the Australian Labor Party objected to at the time and it is a practice we oppose now," she said. "Our policy is to end their use in FOI applications, and we will deliver on that promise."

She stressed that rigorous and independent decision making within public institutions was critical for an effective FOI system.