When New Zealand passed the Official Information Act in 1983 it was greeted with hails of dismay by public service unions, lawyers and academics. Cartoonists depicted the act as a useless halfway compromise with the Official Secrets Act. The then prime minister Robert Muldoon described it as a 'nine day wonder'.

The Australian FoI Act was passed at the same time but was greeted with far greater enthusiasm. Then prime minister Bob Hawke boldly stated: ''Information about government operations is not, after all, some kind of 'favour' to be bestowed by a benevolent government or to be extorted from a reluctant bureaucracy. It is, quite simply, a public right.

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What a difference 23 years and some very different attitudes of our political masters can make.
The word "rendition'" was once commonly used to describe a new version or arrangement of a popular song. In the post 9/11 world, the US Government and its intelligence agencies have given the word a less benign meaning.

Now it generally refers to that murky practice where terror suspects are secretly captured in one country and whisked away to another so they can be held and interrogated at will, often before they are relocated to Guantanamo Bay or some similar institution.

Most countries, including Australia, publicly condemn illegal kidnappings but there is mounting evidence that many governments have given tacit approval to renditions and the German and Italian Governments have been caught up in investigations into these kidnappings.

Australian citizen Mamdouh Habib says he was rendered from Pakistan to Egypt then tortured during six months in prison before being dispatched to Guantanamo Bay, where he was held before being released without charge after 40 months in detention.

How much the Australian Government has known about this practice and what its policies are towards it remains unclear.

After 175 years of publishing, you'd think most people might have worked out what the Herald does when it gets hold of information.
Yep, I'll bet you guessed right.

It publishes stories, like all newspapers do. We put them in the paper and, in recent years, on the internet as well.
This, apparently, will come as a revelation to the public servants in the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations in Canberra.

Governments in Australia have been slowly adopting Freedom of Information laws since the first Act was passed in the early 1980s promising a new era of transparency.
Unfortunately, reality has fallen far short of what was expected and there are great difficulties getting the sort of information from governments that the laws say should be available.
I hope will help change that.

The Herald believes that despite their numerous shortcomings, Freedom of Information (FOI) laws are an essential tool for the media and the public to scrutinise the operation of all levels of government.
Senior journalist Matthew Moore was appointed to encourage greater use by the Herald staff of Freedom of Information laws and to help reporters appeal against government refusals to release information.
We hope to show the sort of information that can be obtained by using the laws and to highlight consistent attempts by governments to deny access to to information that should be in the public arena.

Contact Matthew Moore at if you know of a government document that should be made public.