Information Disclosure Policy: A Toolkit for Pacific Governments (July 2006)
### EXPLANATORY NOTES Proactive disclosure: by Parliament To perform effectively in Parliament, parliamentarians need access to Parliamentary Standing Orders and other regulations governing their conduct. The voting record of MPs, including what they have achieved during their term in office, needs to be collected and published. Draft Bills and regulations need to be published and circulated so that all stakeholders can make comments before they are enacted. While many parliaments suffer from severe resource constraints which have sometimes impaired the Clerk of Parliament's ability to ensure timely publication of drafts, nonetheless, if parliamentarians are to do their jobs, this work needs to be prioritised. At the very least, one copy of all drafts should be kept with the Clerk for inspection. It is also imperative that sufficient resources are available to ensure that final laws are published - at least once, so that they can be held in the parliamentary library and inspected if necessary. In many countries, it is only when a law is notified in the Official Gazette that it comes into force, such that it is essential that the Gazette is regularly printed and a copy is then kept in the parliamentary library. Parliamentary committees also need to publish as much information as possible. Their terms of reference need to be available for inspection in the parliamentary library and on the government website. Likewise, all submissions to committees and draft and final reports need to be kept in the parliamentary library or with the Clerk of Parliament and/or published on-line. To support parliamentarians and to maximise the public's ability to access parliamentary information, it is important to have a properly resourced Parliamentary Library which holds up-to-date documentation from Parliament. Unfortunately, many libraries are under-staffed and under-funded. To ensure easier access for people living away from the parliamentary capital, documentation could also be kept in local government libraries and/or published on the Internet. PacLII - the website used to collect all Pacific legislation together - could be a good partner for governments without sufficient resources to develop their own legislation website. At an individual level, Members of Parliament can act as information collection and disclosure points for their constituents. Draft Bills and Rules, committee reports, answers to questions on notice, policy papers, government and bureaucratic guidelines, press releases and the like can be collected by parliamentarians from Parliament and/or the bureaucracy and made available for inspection or copying at local parliamentary offices and/or on parliamentarians' websites, where they have them. In the same vein, where a constituent specifically requests a document, their representative in Parliament can take an active interest in attempting to secure access and distribute the document more broadly if it is in the public interest. Key questions: How accessible are draft legislation and regulations? Do all MPs receive draft Bills and Rules prior to consideration in Parliament? Can the public access draft laws and rules? Are all legislation and regulations published once they have been enacted? Are they accessible by the public? Has the government considered a publishing relationship with AustLII or PacLII to support the cheap but efficient publication of laws? Do parliamentary committees function? If so, are their hearings open to the public? Are committee hearings recorded and published? Are submissions to committees published? Is there a properly resourced and staffed parliamentary library? Do parliamentarians have proper access to research materials and comparative information from other jurisdictions? Do parliamentarians have email and internet access? Do they know how to use it? Could the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association or Inter-Parliamentary Union provide support in promoting more access to parliamentary information
Commissioned by the Pacific Media and Communications Facility, an Australian Government, AusAID initiative managed by MDI International in association with MC Media & Associates