Richard Marles is doing the media round this morning. He is asked about the two year anniversary of the October 7 attacks on the ABC and says:

It’s very difficult to make sense of it. What happened on this day two years ago was the loss of more appalling terrorist and on Israel. And as such, today really can be only one thing, and that is a day of remembrance and commemoration for them and thoughts are very much for their families. Of course, what we’ve seen unfold over the course of the last two years has been absolutely horrific, and we have seen immense suffering. We have seen a significant loss of innocent life in Gaza, and clearly, our thoughts are very much there as well. And it leads us to where we are today, which is that we want to see a ceasefire. We want to see a return of those hostages. We want to see a pathway to an enduring peace in the Middle East, and that really can only come about through the implementation of a two-state solution (which many in the Israeli government have rejected)

Q: As you say, the conflict has affected so many different communities here in Australia. is it your view that today is not the day for separate demonstrations?

Marles:

Oh, today is not a day for demonstrations. Today is a day for remembrance and commemoration. I mean, obviously, this is a very difficult day for the Jewish community in Australia and it is a very solemn day but, in fact, the Jewish community around the world, and the it is utterly appropriate this day that those who lost their lives two years ago are remembered and commemorated in the most solemn way.

Defence consultant and lobbyist (and former prime minister) Scott Morrison has declared Donald Trump deserves the Nobel peace prize if his ‘peace’ plan is agreed to in Gaza.

If you can stomach it, his interview with Sky News is here.

Glenn Connley

Proposed changes to Australia’s Freedom of Information (FOI) laws would make a repeat of the disastrous Robodebt coverup more likely, rather than less, according to new research by The Australia Institute.  

The Royal Commission into Robodebt recommended making cabinet documents easier to access under FOI laws, finding the current system thwarted investigations into the scheme.  

The Prime Minister himself described Robodebt as a “gross betrayal and human tragedy”, yet his government plans to make cabinet documents harder to access.  

This is in direct defiance of the Robodebt Royal Commission’s recommendation to make cabinet documents available for public scrutiny.  

“If cabinet documents had been public, the unlawful and cruel Robodebt scheme could have been exposed and prevented. For that reason, the Robodebt Royal Commission recommended making cabinet documents available under FOI,” said Bill Browne, Director of the Australia Institute’s Democracy & Accountability Program.

“The Albanese government wants to make documents even harder to access, in defiance of the Royal Commission, increasing the risk the next Robodebt will happen in secret.”

“The over-use of the cabinet document exemption and other problems with the FOI system are critical reasons why Robodebt was allowed to continue with impunity for so long,” said Maria O’Sullivan, Associate Professor at Deakin Law School.

“The proposed changes to the FOI Act will actually expand the cabinet exemption even further.”

The new research also reveals that it is government inefficiency, not the number of requests, behind the growing cost of the FOI system.

“Information is to democratic participation as water is to life. People often take water for granted, until it stops flowing,” said Rex Patrick, founder of the Whistleblower Justice Fund.

Key findings

The Albanese Government is lagging on transparency:  

• Fewer FOI decisions are being made than in earlier years: 21,000 last year down from 34,000 in 2017. 
• Only 21% of 2023-24 FOI requests were granted in full compared to 81% in 2006-07 (the last year of the Howard government). 
• In 2023-24 it took 51 hours, on average, to determine one FOI request, up from 13 hours in 2006-07. 
• If the Albanese government achieved the Howard government’s cost-per-FOI-request ratio, taxpayers would save $61 million per year. 

The changes proposed in the Albanese government’s Freedom of Information Amendment Bill 2025 would exacerbate these problems:

• The fee for access would raise less than $500,000, against a scheme that cost $86 million last year.  
• The Robodebt Royal Commission recommended making cabinet documents subject to freedom of information requests. The government’s changes would instead make it even harder to access cabinet-related documents.  
• The power to refuse a request that would take more than 40 hours to process means the less efficient an agency is, the more it could keep secret.  

“Last year, it took over 50 hours to decide a single FOI request, up from 13 hours in 2007,” said Bill Browne.

“In other words, the Albanese government employs four public servants to do what only took one public servant under the Howard government. If the government is serious about improving productivity, it should start with how it runs the FOI system.  

“The Albanese government wants to charge the public for FOI requests, but the fees for a whole year’s worth of FOI requests wouldn’t cover the FOI regulator’s legal fees in a single court case. 

“In the last year of the Howard government, 27,500 FOI requests were granted in full – compared to just 4,500 granted in full last year.” 

Hello and welcome to another parliament sitting – and estimates!

The House will sit as normal and the government plans on using the sitting to forward some of its agenda, including new laws which strengthen the responsibility of being the 000 custodian after the Optus failure led to tragedy.

The FOI legislation the government has foreshadowed, which will make it more expensive (and difficult) to access information will also be advanced, and the government will also be working to show “while we’re fighting for Australians, the Coalition are fighting each other” which is what happens when your entire party is a shit show.

But the shit show that is the opposition is allowing the government to escape having to answer some questions it really should be answering – which is why estimates should be so interesting this week. The crossbench have been working overtime to gather as much information on issues as they can ahead of the senate committees, where the Coalition have so far indicated they are sticking to political point scoring, rather than actual useful information gathering.

Meanwhile in the House, Anthony Albanese will recognise the second anniversary of the October 7 attacks, while warning anti-genocide protesters against holding any protests. Given there are Australians who were aboard the Sumad Flotilla, which Israel illegally intercepted, detaining the crews (international law is pretty clear about international waters) and that all major humanitarian groups, including the UN have ruled Israel’s actions in Gaza a genocide, and its leaders are wanted for war crimes, and a recent poll showed more than half of Australians want to see Russian style sanctions against Israel, it seems tone deaf to be calling for silence. It is possible to mourn the loss of life and acknowledge the horror of October 7, while also acknowledging that ethically, morally and legally there is no justification for what Israel has done in Gaza for the past two years.

We’ll bring you all the day’s events, as they happen. Please feel free to drop us a line, or let us know what is catching your attention, or what you would like to know more about. We’ll have eyes on as many committees as we can, as well as what is happening in the House. It’s a three coffee morning. At least.

Ready?

Let’s jump into it.