When outgoing University of Tasmania Deputy Dean of Law Rick Snell delved into the legal niche of public accountability one of his children said to him “that was a poor choice”.
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It was the late 1990s and there were few countries in the world with freedom of information (FOI) laws.
“At that time, it didn’t look like [FOI] was going to go anywhere,” Dr Snell said.
“There are now more than 100 countries with FOI and this Open Government Partnership idea has exploded … I didn’t plan for it but that niche of mine has opened up and moved into areas like good governance, accountability, [and] anti-corruption.”
FOI laws provide citizens with access to government documents, with the aim of promoting transparency and accountability of government, its officials, and their actions.
Dr Snell’s next working role continues to deal with FOI ideals on an international scale, although he is no stranger to this international scene.
“I was intending to wind down after accepting the offer of redundancy from UTAS … my wife was scared that I would spend all my day playing computer games,” Dr Snell said.
“[But] I got appointed to the International Expert Panel, one of 10 members, overseeing the work of the Independent Reporting Mechanism of the Open Government Partnership.
“This is an Obama [US former president Barack Obama] initiative, where a series of countries have committed themselves for advanced awards, for more open government. They sign up to it, and if they don’t adhere to those commitments or minimum standards they can get kicked out of the Open Government Partnership … 76 countries have signed up.”
Despite open government practices increasingly becoming a recognised aspiration, Dr Snell said Australia and Tasmania have a long way to go to achieve status.
Dr Snell said Australia, unlike New Zealand, leaned towards secrecy.
“In a crude generalisation, the public service in Australia is inherently turned towards or operates in an environment of secrecy as their preferred camouflage. They are not used to, or accustomed, to working with any real degree of transparency in that process,” he said.
“If there is a possible risk of FOI … they will go to other communication systems where there is a guarantee of secrecy … they would rather take no notes for minutes if there is a possible risk of FOI.”
He said in New Zealand it is the other way around, where officials will be comprehensive when writing documents because they know that it will be read by others.
Of the Tasmanian situation, Dr Snell said progress surrounding the Freedom of Information Act has been slow since its enactment 27 years ago.
In recent times, open government has been further hampered by an under-resourced Ombudsman.
“The [FOI] Act was designed to facilitate the positive release of information by government to assist democracy … have we really advanced significantly from 1991 from where we were to now? My answer would blatantly be ‘no’,” he said.
“If you think of the hard issues - the floods, the cable car, the fisheries [including] both fish farms on the West Coast or East Coast expenditure on infrastructure, [and] child services … if you name the whole raft of sensitive hot topic issues, your chances of getting reliable, quick information from the government at the bureaucracy is almost next to none, or it would be significantly delayed.”
He said he was disappointed that people did not see the benefits of transparency or did not want to live with a degree of risk.
“I am a passionate believer that openness is preferable to secrecy … it [FOI] empowers people to keep a check on local officials.”
If you ask Dr Snell what his greatest career achievements are, there’s a long list of possibilities from which he can choose.
For example, he has visited more than 20 countries including the US, Canada, Botswana, Indonesia and the Philippines, and met many of their leaders, promoting the importance of transparency and FOI.
He chooses three highlights.
Becoming Deputy Dean of the Law School, finding himself in unexpected places, and teaching his students, including some of the “best minds of their generations”.
Dr Snell said his Deputy Dean position was especially pertinent given his personal background, and how he started working as a casual university tutor.
He said he lived most of his childhood and teenage years on the West Coast of Tasmania.
His father was a miner, his uncles were miners, and when he finished college he went to sign up at the Mt Lyell mine for work.
At that time the mine was going through a retrenchment process, and so, he signed up for university instead.
He went on to complete a combined arts law degree, with honours in political science, and eventually got a job working in the public service in tax.
He said he looked for ways in which he could get out of this job, which led him to a tutor teaching role at the university for a new subject - Principles of Public Law.
From this he developed his deep interest in public administrative law, which eventually led him into a position where he could educate not just Australian students, but foreign leaders as well.
This is how he found himself in unexpected places, including Phnom Penh in Cambodia.
“On the third floor of the military headquarters, sitting in a long chamber like the Paris Peace Talks, with me and four advisors on my side, and sitting across from me, a dozen senior military officials with armed helmeted guards behind them, talking about freedom of information,” he said.
Dr Snell said his final highlight, of being able to engage with and have a small degree of influence in the educational lives of many and varied students was a great privilege.
“I have had some unexpected highlights, but it has been a joy, and it will continue after this. I will fade into the sunset in terms of academia, but there are exciting places ahead.”
