Thank you for signing the petition to end government secrecy.

This latest attempt for more secrecy has faced massive backlash – from the public, democracy experts, crossbenchers and even the Coalition. And it still has to pass the Senate, which means we have a critical window of opportunity to stop it. 

Make a donation today to power the Australia Institute's independent research into government transparency, exposing the flaws in the Government's rushed Freedom of Information changes.

You're powering our researchers to:

• Update our analysis of the broken FOI system based on the latest data from the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner
• Recommend positive reforms to the FOI system, instead of the increased secrecy and expense that would come with the Albanese Govt's reforms
• Continue to pursue our own FOI requests to expose the flimsy evidence behind the government's claims.

It takes a team – when you donate to the Australia Institute you are supporting our economists, researchers and experts to improve public policy. We could not have the impact we do without your support.

Australia Institute research into Freedom of Information laws: 

We have the runs on the board. Our highly-visible research is helping more Australians understand that this culture of government secrecy is deeply entrenched. We've uncovered that:

• • Only 21% of 2023-24 FOI requests were granted in full compared to 81% in 2006-07.
  • Whereas the average request once took 13 hours to determine (2006-07), it now takes 51 hours (2023-24). In other words, the Albanese government employs four public servants to do what only took one public servant under the Howard government.
  • If the Albanese government achieved the Howard government’s cost-per-FOI-request ratio, taxpayers would save $61 million per year.
  • The Robodebt Royal Commission recommended making cabinet documents subject to freedom of information requests but the government’s changes would instead make it even harder to access cabinet-related documents.Most Australians think too much gas is exported and want gas exports taxed

Your impact

Some of the recent impact of our work includes:

• Playing a critical role in the Federal Government’s decision to redesign the Stage 3 tax cuts to deliver an additional $84 billion dollars from high income earners to low- and middle-income earners over the next ten years, the culmination of five years of Australia Institute research and advocacy 
• The announcement of no less than six different inquiries into prices and price-gouging, following our influential research exposing how excessive corporate profits were largely responsible for the burst of inflation that followed COVID lockdowns.  
• The establishment of the National Anti-Corruption Commission, following a decade of research and advocacy from the Australia Institute exposing the serious flaws and gaps in our integrity system.
• Exposing how around 75% of Australia's gas is exported overseas, over half (56%) of gas exported from Australia attracts zero royalty payments, effectively giving a public resource to multinational gas corporations for free.

But we couldn't do it without supporters like you.

The Australia Institute is not government-funded. We are powered by donations from philanthropy and by thousands of supporters across the country who value research that matters, as well as grants and commissioned work. 

For more than 30 years the Australia Institute’s independent, non-partisan research has played a critical role in shaping Australian public policy for the better. But we can't do it without you.