The information commissioner, Angelene Falk, has described allegations the watchdog’s leadership “gaslighted” the former FoI commissioner and presented a “false narrative” about FoI funding constraints as “disturbing” while dismissing other claims as untrue or misleading.
The information watchdog responded to the extraordinary accusations made to a Senate inquiry by the former FoI commissioner Leo Hardiman in August, which he claimed had led to his resignation from the role just one year into a five-year term.
Hardiman had made a series of claims about his short time in the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, including that his efforts to resolve the growing backlog of FoI requests were frustrated by leadership and that Falk had “intimidated” and gaslit him into providing more details about his resignation.
Hardiman also claimed the agency’s cultural problems were “entirely a product” of Falk’s leadership.
In a 47-page submission responding to the claims, which was released on Thursday, Falk said she did not share Hardiman’s “recollection or characterisation of our working relationship, which I considered to be professional and respectful on my part”.
“Mr Hardiman did not raise with me in direct terms, or in any substantive way, the issues and allegations outlined in his statement,” she said.
“Many of these were not raised with me at all. Nor did he convey that they were of such magnitude that he would take the serious step of resigning less than 12 months into a five-year term.
“Mr Hardiman’s resignation, and the tone and substance of the evidence he has subsequently provided to this committee, have been disturbing.”
During his explosive evidence to the Senate in August, Hardiman also alleged that OAIC leadership treated its FoI work as of lesser importance than its role as a privacy regulator.
He suggested OAIC leadership ignored major problems causing the backlog in FoI decision reviews, instead promulgating false narratives about its funding constraints and its improvements in FoI work in recent years.
But Falk pushed back, saying the suggestion that FoI work was treated as secondary ignored the context within which the OAIC was operating. She said the government had compelled the agency to expand its remit as a privacy regulator and allocated it funding specifically for that purpose.
“The structure of the OAIC and allocation of resourcing are not the result of an internal ‘cultural bent’ which values privacy over FoI, but rather a necessary consequence of Parliament’s decision to confer expansive privacy regulatory functions on the OAIC, together with the government’s provision of specific funding to carry out these privacy functions,” she said.
She also rejected suggestions that the OAIC ignored the FoI backlog, saying there was a clearly defined strategy for dealing with it.
She also said claims that resources had been inappropriately diverted from FoI to the agency’s corporate area were “incorrect”.
Hardiman’s evidence to the Senate had also raised a serious allegation that the OAIC had allowed a false narrative to be presented to the federal court as it fought a case brought by the former senator Rex Patrick, which alleged delays to its FoI work were unlawful.
Hardiman said the OAIC had allowed the court to believe that it had no control over the resourcing available for its FoI work, despite him raising concerns internally about the accuracy of such a narrative.
Falk said it simply was not true that any “false narrative” existed or that “false or misleading evidence or submissions” were made to the federal court, and said Hardiman had not raised any internal concerns, despite being significantly involved in reviewing the OAIC’s submissions to the court.
