Appearing before a budget estimates committee today, Elise Archer was asked about a damning report published by Ombudsman Richard Connock last week, which showed that Tasmania was effectively the most secretive state in the country.

The report found that 30 per cent of right to information decisions by public authorities in 2018-19 resulted in the complete refusal of access to information.

This meant that Tasmanian government agencies were 750 per cent more likely to deny information than those in the nation's most open jurisdictions.

"Minister, do you believe there is a culture of secrecy being infiltrated by your government through government agencies where there's an expectation now that when an RTI request is received, the reflex action is to refuse to release," Labor justice spokeswoman Ella Haddad said.

In other news:

"I wouldn't like to think that there's that type of culture," Ms Archer replied. "We would like to see consistency in decision-making.

"That statistic is alarming and needs to be reduced.

"What we've discussed with the Ombudsman is there are some sections of the [Right to Information] Act that could do with some administrative changes, which will make his job a lot easier and certainly the job of RTI officers in determining what it is that section actually requires. Because there can be some discrepancies there as well.

"So there can be some relatively minor administrative amendments to the act ... sooner rather than later."

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