Canberra Liberals push for ACT cabinet documents to be published after 30 days instead of 10 years

The party will on Friday release an exposure draft of an amendment to the Freedom of Information Act that would require most papers considered by the territory's cabinet to be proactively released by ministers, except in circumstances where material could be life threatening or otherwise damaging if made public.

Opposition Leader Elizabeth Lee said the change would strike the right balance between transparency and protecting sensitive information.

"Cabinet confidentiality as a principle or a concept really did come about when you're talking about national security issues or the like. We're not talking about what the ACT government has the jurisdiction to make decisions about," Ms Lee said.

"If New Zealand, with their national parliament, is able to institute this, I honestly see no reason why the ACT government cannot do the same thing."

Cabinet documents and cabinet committee papers and minutes must be proactively released within 30 businesses days after final decisions are taken by New Zealand's cabinet. The change was made under the country's Labour government, led by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.

The New Zealand scheme requires ministers to set out their reasons for blocking the release of documents, which can be done on national security grounds and where there are other sensitivities.

Ms Lee said her draft legislation, which would be available for public consultation until August, would extend the same reasons from the territory's freedom of information regime that allow documents to be exempt from release.

"I think that it is really important for any government of the day when they're making decisions that impact the community to be as transparent as possible and to be held to account and to scrutiny. Obviously, I'll be open to feedback I receive on this exposure draft and we'll go from there," she said.

The exposure bill would create a new class of cabinet records under freedom of information laws, and require the minister who brought the record to cabinet to proactively publish it 30 business days after it was considered by cabinet.

Cabinet documents are currently classified as "executive records" under the Territory Records Act, which requires the government to publish a list of accessible executive records on Canberra Day each year.

Access to executive records can be made after 10 years in the ACT, however there are often significant delays to accessing the information.

The ACT cabinet office last year took 287 days to release a series of decade-old cabinet documents to The Canberra Times, responding to the March and April requests in late December following further media enquiries.

Chief Minister Andrew Barr in February apologised for a six-month break in the publication of ACT government cabinet decisions. The ACT government began uploading the summary of cabinet decisions to the internet in 2011, which was an Australian-first.

While the list of cabinet decisions is expected to be published within 28 days of the meeting, there is no timeframe for publication set out in the legislation. No cabinet decision summaries have been published for meetings held this year.

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