The year-and-a-half-long battle to see Premier Malinauskas’s diary
Transparency warrior Rex Patrick looks set to win his long FOI battle to open the diary of Premier Peter Malinauskas.
Self-proclaimed transparency warrior and Jacqui Lambie Network senate candidate Rex Patrick looks set to win a year-and-a-half-long battle to gain access to Premier Peter Malinauskas’ diary.
Working alongside independent Upper House parliamentarian Frank Pangallo, Patrick hopes to set a precedent in South Australia for premiers and ministers to proactively disclose their diaries.
Speaking to InDaily, Patrick said that the Premier “works for us” and that we are entitled to see what he’s doing and who is trying to influence his decisions.
“When I made the diary FOI request back in 2023 I naively thought the Premier would respond by disclosing his diary, respectful of the need for transparency. Instead, I found myself in an 18-month battle against secrecy,” he said.
“Throughout the whole Ombudsman review process, the Premier resisted transparency by trying to adopt alternate FOI exemptions when his primary exemptions were rejected… His defeat was pretty total, and I hope it’s knocked some hubris from him.
“The one upside to the Premier’s secrecy obsession is that he’s now left a diary decision in South Australian case law that others can rely on to assist them getting access to the Premier’s, or a future Premier’s diary.”
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Currently, other jurisdictions around Australia have a mandatory requirement for the state’s premier to disclose their diary.
In Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania, premiers and ministers are required to regularly disclose some form of their diaries for the public to see.
For example, since 2023, ministers in Victoria have been required to disclose their meetings with lobbyists.
However, no such requirement exists in South Australia.
Patrick launched his Freedom on Information (FOI) bid on 19 October 2023 and after much toing and froing, the Premier may finally have to open part of his diary to the public.
In his FOI request, Patrick wrote: “I seek access to the Premier’s diary for the period outlined below. I only a (sic) seek access to the diary in the weekly view (I do not seek access to support material that is within the meeting entry).”
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Patrick requested to view the Premier’s diary from the dates of July 10 to October 19, 2023 – the longest period permitted under the FOI Act.
On November 3, 2023, an unidentified agency released a censored version of the Premier’s diary with no specific information about who he was meeting with or what the meetings were about.
Pangallo and Patrick also asked for the diaries of other ministers within the Malinauskas government and were given access to them.
The diaries obtained from these FOI requests contain specific information about where the minister was, what time it was and what they were doing.
Pangallo has also put a motion to the Upper House calling on ministers to proactively disclose their diaries.
In response to the release of the Premier’s edited diary, Patrick launched a failed internal review before turning to the SA Ombudsman Emily Strickland on November 20, 2023, to gain full access to the diary within the requested dates.
According to a provisional determination of the ombudsman, the aforementioned unamed agency listed various reasons why Patrick should not have access to the unedited diary.
This included that it could “endanger the life or physical safety of any person” and that it “contains matter the disclosure of which would involve the disclosure of information concerning personal affairs of persons (living or dead)”.
However, in her provisional determination, Strickland dismissed many of these claims, finding that “[t]he determination of the agency is varied”.
After numerous rounds of feedback between the agency, Patrick and the Ombudsman, Strickland released her final determination of the external review on February 12, 2025.
Strickland’s decision paves the way for Patrick to have access to the Premier’s diary within the requested timeframe, except for entries related to personal affairs, which are exempt under the FOI Act.
Responding to InDaily on why the Premier’s diary has not been released, a government spokesperson said that “the South Australian proactively discloses a range of information relating to the activities of Ministers and Chief Executives on a monthly basis, including expenditure on mobile phones, credit cards and travel”.
“Other information is obtainable through Freedom of Information, which is processed in accordance with the Act.”
