I'm struck that the UK government still has an Official Secrets Act. As a citizen of the UK, you still have to prove that it is in the public good to release information before the government will respond to your inquiry. In NZ, the Official Information Act has the opposite assumption.
It occurred to me this morning that the current Corngate upset is an interesting measure of exactly how open NZ governments are expected to be.
Mark Prebble's discrimination about which documents he would release would appear to me to be the natural reaction of a career public servant. Public servants are obliged to consider whether or not they are blabbing a government secret on a constant basis. Someone in Mark's position would have been living in that mindset to a greater degree than most.
So it was quite normal for Mr Prebble's first thought to be about whether or not any document *should* be released. Interestingly, he is being judged against a much, much higher standard of disclosure than that, namely that he should not consider whether or not it was in the public interest that the document be released, but only whether or not it related to the Corngate issue.
I am left thinking that Mr Prebble is indeed honourable, if a little bound by habit.
And also wondering if the Prime Minister was wise to issue such a command.
Posted by carla at September 10, 2003 11:16 PM