Wednesday, February 17, 2010

FOI request for climate time line emails-Request denied.

As part of its investigation into ABC's faulty website "A journey through climate history" ABC NEWS WATCH submitted an FOI request the the ABC for:


"correspondence, electronic (emails) and otherwise in connection to the production of the ABC website " A journey through Climate History", including commissioning instructions and comments on initial versions."






The request has been turned down on the grounds that the ABC is an exempt agency for the purposes of the FOI Act with respect to documents "in relation to its program material and datacasting content".


Pity the ABC don't outline this on their website and we would have saved ourselves the cost of the application fee. 


SOME QUESTIONS:
1. Why are documents related to ABC program material and datacasting content exempt from FOI? 
2. Clearly where tax payer funds have been used to produce a faulty program, there is a compelling public interest in releasing documents that might shed light on how such faults got through the ABC's editorial system?
3. What have the ABC got to hide? 
4. Does the ABC have its own Climategate in the making?


Is there a brave whistle blowing?

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