FOI Commissioner Linacre reflects on her first six months
25 March 2026
Alice Linacre has recently reflected on the first six months in her role as Australia’s Freedom of Information Commissioner, emphasising the vital role played by FOI in the framework of representative democracy and her priorities around continuing administrative improvements and efficacy in a world of ever-growing information.
You can read the reflection here: My first six months as FOI commissioner: Building trust and promoting good administration | OAIC
Commissioner Linacre reflects on the objects of the Freedom of Information Act and the important role that it plays in our democratic system. If you need a refresher, we have extracted the objects clause below:
(1) The objects of this Act are to give the Australian community access to information held by the Government of the Commonwealth, by:
(a) requiring agencies to publish the information; and
(b) providing for a right of access to documents.
(2) The Parliament intends, by these objects, to promote Australia's representative democracy by contributing towards the following:
(a) increasing public participation in Government processes, with a view to promoting better - informed decision - making;
(b) increasing scrutiny, discussion, comment and review of the Government's activities.
(3) The Parliament also intends, by these objects, to increase recognition that information held by the Government is to be managed for public purposes, and is a national resource.
(4) The Parliament also intends that functions and powers given by this Act are to be performed and exercised, as far as possible, to facilitate and promote public access to information, promptly and at the lowest reasonable cost.
Reflecting on these objects, Commissioner Linacre discusses the right to FOI as a practical example of democratic participation; noting that civic participation in the transparency process is alive and well, with 43,456 FOI applications made last financial year and requests for IC review up 21% in the same period.
Commissioner Linacre reflected that her role as Commissioner is grounded in building trust in the FOI system as a vehicle for public participation in and scrutiny of government decisions; in addition to facilitating public confidence and trust in FOI decision making processes and refers to both the Trust in Public Services 2025 Annual Report- external site and Commonwealth Integrity Strategy, noting that, ’Transparency is now an accepted principle of the Australian democratic fabric.’
Commissioner Linacre confirms that her priorities moving forward are to:
- Promote Open Government to better serve the Australian community.
- Make FOI compliance easier.
- Increase OAIC FOI regulatory and case management effectiveness.
- Uplift agency capability in the exercise of FOI functions.
In supporting these priorities, Commissioner Linacre discusses the importance of ‘administrative excellence’. Among this pursuit is a need for good administrative practices which acknowledges FOI as a community right, promotes proactive publication and recognises the FOI Act as a legislative scheme which seeks to mitigate the ’the inherent power imbalance’ between Government decision making and the public’s ability to seek and understand those decisions.
The Commissioner emphasises the importance of continual administrative improvement in identifying and investigating administrative issues as they arise, with an emphasis on the deployment of new technology and tools to enable innovative provision of services and on proactive publication.
Acknowledging the practical strain of administering the FOI Act in a world that is increasingly contending with extensive information production and data generation, the Commissioner also recognises that timeliness is a key issue affecting the administration of the Act.
Looking forward, the Commissioner highlights intentions to innovate and uplift the FOI framework. An example of which is the OAIC’s imminent launch of the ’disclosure log hub’ which will provide access to the disclosure logs of more than 240 agencies. We understand that the hub will centralise access to proactively published information including past FOI requests, therefore enhancing community access to government decision material and hopefully lessening repetitive or superfluous FOI requests.
In discussing proactive publication, the Commissioner also provides her view that, ’the space for access requests under the FOI act should ideally only be information that can’t be released proactively, for example, through the Information Publication Scheme (IPS).’ This focus on access mechanisms outside of the FOI Act, appears to be a focus for the Commissioner, who discussed the benefits of administrative access at the Australian Government Solicitor FOI and Privacy Law Conference in late 2025. You can read our summary of this address here: Key takeaways from FOI Commissioner Alice Linacre's keynote at the Australian Government Solicitor FOI and Privacy Law Conference.
The Commissioner again spotlighted the Department of Veterans’ Affairs as owing its 52% decrease in FOI requests and 29% reduction in OAIC reviews over 2024-2025, to encouraging the use of administrative access rather than a formal FOI request. The Commissioner also called attention to changes made by the National Disability Insurance Agency to its FOI management, in deploying case management systems, providing training, and reducing decision-makers’ delegations.
