[LINK] Ruddock to open Govt contractors to FOI

[Howard Lowndes]

<hfl>
It looks like the private contractors will declare everything to be
"commercial in confidence"

Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose (I think; my FR is a little
rusty)

</hfl>
 http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s1066010.htm

The Federal Government is planning reforms to Freedom of Information
(FOI) laws which would allow documents from private contractors working
for the Commonwealth to be released.

Attorney-General Philip Ruddock says at the moment information from the
Commonwealth's own agencies can be disclosed, but that is not the case
when contracts are outsourced to a private company.

Mr Ruddock says the changes would make the system consistent and he
insists sensitive information relating to tender bids would not be
subject to the changes.

"The normal safeguards that are there to preserve people's privacy would
remain," he said.

"In relation to commercial in confidence ... information which might be
available to a competitor that would jeopardise contractual arrangement
... those sorts of protections should still exist."

-- 
Howard.
LANNet Computing Associates - Your Linux people <http://www.lannetlinux.com>
------------------------------------------
Flatter government, not fatter government - Get rid of the Australian states.
------------------------------------------
To mess up a Linux box, you need to work at it;
to mess up your Windows box, you just need to work on it.
 - Scott Granneman, SecurityFocus