George Orwell's 1984 is still alive and well in Australia in 2011 - as this piece from The Sunday Age clearly demonstrates. One might have thought, and hoped, that in this post WikiLeaks era Governments might have learnt. No such luck it seems.
'NO COMMENT,'' said the Australian Information Commissioner.
Never accuse the government of lacking a sense of humour. It was brilliant! Here was its new agency, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner. An official-looking website claimed this supposed ''OAIC'' was part of the Attorney-General's Department.
Committed to ''open public sector information'' it was, according to the mission statement. On and on it went about the integrity and importance of free, public, and open information in government.
''We will champion open government, provide advice and assistance to the public, promote better information management by government … we will have a comprehensive range of functions, including investigating complaints.'' Vigorous stuff, but was it too vigorous to be true?
''Government-held information is a national resource,'' said this OAIC.
Just the place to go for some information, we thought. We had discovered public information had been disappearing from government databases. Something had to be done. Australian Information Commissioner, here we come.
''No comment,'' said the commissioner, via email.
But hang on! Large files of public information had been quietly purged by the corporate regulator, and the central bank and Treasury. National resources, buried, three separate departments. We have a pattern. Here is the proof.
''No comment,'' said the email from the communications operative on behalf of the commissioner.
Then the penny dropped.
Most commentary on the Chilcot Inquiry Report of and associated with the Iraq War, has been "lifted" from the Executive Summary. The Intercept has actually gone and dug into the Report, with these revelations : "THE CHILCOT REPORT, the U.K.’s official inquiry into its participation in the Iraq War, has finally been released after seven years of investigation. Its executive summary certainly makes former Prime Minister Tony Blair, who led the British push for war, look terrible. According to the report, Blair made statements about Iraq’s nonexistent chemical, biological, and nuclear programs based on “what Mr. Blair believed” rather than the intelligence he had been given. The U.K. went to war despite the fact that “diplomatic options had not been exhausted.” Blair was warned by British intelligence that terrorism would “increase in the event of war, reflecting intensified anti-US/anti-Western sentiment in the Muslim world, including among Muslim communities in the
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