https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/jun/30/federal-loan-bodys-denial-of-foi-request-most-secretive-says-legal-expert
The federal body considering a $900m loan to Adani is “one of the most secretive agencies I’ve ever come across”, a leading scholar on freedom of information (FoI) law says.
The Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility (Naif) continues to resist releasing basic details of its board meetings, saying that, like private banks, it needs to keep these secret and citing concerns about the “cyberbullying” of directors and targeting by protestors.
Rick Snell, the deputy dean of the University of Tasmania’s law school, said the Naif was virtually throwing the “kitchen sink” into its bid to refuse an FoI request by Greenpeace, which is appealing to the office of the information commissioner.
But none of the Naif’s arguments cut the mustard for a body charged with investing $5bn in taxpayer money, and which should expect “a higher threshold of public accountability”, Snell said.
“I think they scramble for whatever excuses they can not to release information and go out of their way, more so than any other agency I’ve encountered,” he said.
Snell’s withering assessment comes ahead of a Senate inquiry into the Naif, which the federal opposition has also asked the federal auditor general to examine.
The Naif has sought to justify its secrecy by citing the public attention given to the Adani project, which has become a lightning rod for environmental campaigners .
The chair of Naif, Sharon Warburton, had a speech interrupted by an anti-Adani protester at a conference in Cairns last week where there was already a heavy security presence.
Media sources have told of security preventing a news photographer from taking a photo of the outburst, and that journalists were told they weren’t allowed to record Warburton’s speech.
Snell said if the Naif prevailed in its arguments against releasing “a fairly innocuous document” with now outdated details of a meeting, it would be easy for other government agencies to adopt the same “invalid” reasons to avoid future disclosure.
http://www.greenpeace.org/australia/en/mediacentre/media-releases/NAIF-are-holding-taxpayers-money-to-ransom-behind-a-wall-of-secrecy/
The continued refusal of the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility (NAIF) to respond to any and all freedom of information requests represents a failure to the Australian taxpayer and is impermissible under law.
More than 1,500 Greenpeace supporters used an online tool created to assist them in submitting a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to the board across a range of topics.
The NAIF have responded with a blanket refusal to answer the requests.
“The repeated refusal by the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility to reveal any information about their functioning is dismaying,” Greenpeace Climate and Energy Campaigner, Nikola Casule, said.
“Excuses have ranged from the usual commercial in confidence to documents being changed after the request was submitted to fears of cyber-bullying, and potential public opposition to NAIF’s plans.
“What it amounts to is a refusal to have any form of accountability to the Australian public despite controlling $1 billion of their money.”
In failing to respond to the most recent round of FOI requests the NAIF responded that answering would “substantially and unreasonably divert the resources of the agency”.
But Principal Solicitor with the Environmental Defenders Office NSW, Elaine Johnson, said the response was improper and was counter to the spirit of FOI laws.
“In deciding whether an FOI request is unreasonable, it is irrelevant to consider the number of people who sought that information,” Johnson said.
“The requests are legitimate requests and cover a range of important public interest issues, in relation to funding of Adani’s coal mine in the Galilee Basin, managing climate change risk and investments in fossil fuels.
“The fact that more than 1,500 people have applied for documents held by NAIF only serves to demonstrate the clear public interest in making that information publicly available.
“The approach proposed by NAIF to the requests is not consistent with how the law is intended to work.
Send message to NAIF at
https://act.greenpeace.org/page/7812/petition/1 
