Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Disparity between rural and urban areas uncovered by Lib Dem FoI requests to 10 ambulance trusts
Patients in some rural areas wait almost three times longer for emergency ambulances than those in towns and cities, while people with potential heart attacks or strokes now face a one hour 40-minute average wait in one area, statistics have shown.
The disparities were uncovered by freedom of information requests by the Liberal Democrats to England’s 10 ambulance trusts, which in turn covered waiting times for 227 areas across the country.
Exclusive: Meetings while in Saudi Arabia undisclosed due to ‘administrative oversight’, says business department
The chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, held undisclosed meetings with senior executives of Saudi Arabian firms when he was the business secretary, documents acquired by the Guardian show.
The meetings occurred in January, when Kwarteng visited the kingdom for a two-day trip under his previous ministerial role.
Guardian, BBC and Times seek release of documents about policy of sending asylum seekers abroad
A Foreign Office official raised concerns about plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, citing state surveillance, arbitrary detention, torture and killings by the country’s government, the high court has heard.
The court has been asked to consider an application by the foreign secretary to keep parts of certain government documents secret for fear the contents could damage international relations and threaten national security.
Australian officials stayed in “regular contact” with the Chinese embassy in Canberra to “explain our decisions” even when Australian ministers were subjected to a two-year diplomatic freeze, newly released documents show.
The former Morrison government had been “willing to engage with China in dialogue at any time”, according to Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade briefing notes, which also described the relationship as being under “considerable strain”.
Review found council was ‘paralysed’ due to processing freedom of information requests
Northumberland county council operated in a “climate of fear and intimidation” so extreme that senior officers and councillors were constantly making freedom of information (FoI) requests to dig dirt on each other, a report has found.
An independent governance review into the council found it had become “paralysed” due to the “extraordinary” resources devoted to processing almost 5,000 FoI requests made within three years, many from senior officers and councillors.
Hundreds of severely mentally ill prisoners in urgent need of hospital treatment are being left in prison cells due to bed shortages in secure NHS psychiatric units, an investigation has discovered.
Freedom of information (FoI) responses from 22 NHS trusts reveal for the first time that just over half of the 5,403 prisoners in England assessed by prison-based psychiatrists to require hospitalisation were not transferred between 2016 and 2021 – an 81% increase on the number of prisoners denied a transfer in the previous five years.
Letter signed by several MPs urges better enforcement of transparency law, as government accused of obstructing requests
More than 100 journalists, politicians and campaigners have signed an open letter warning that the UK’s freedom of information (FoI) laws are being undermined by a lack of resources and government departments obstructing lawful requests.
The signatories include the editor-in-chief of the Guardian, Katharine Viner, the editor of the Observer, Paul Webster, as well as the shadow solicitor general, Andy Slaughter, the former Brexit secretary David Davis, and the former Green party leader Caroline Lucas.
It is the second ruling of its type this week after the prime minister’s office also ordered a search for text messages from QAnon supporter Tim Stewart
The prime minister’s office has been ordered to search for text messages from Barnaby Joyce to Scott Morrison reporting on his work as drought envoy, in the second ruling this week on freedom of information battles involving Morrison’s phone.
On Wednesday, the information watchdog ordered the PMO search Morrison’s phone for text messages from his friend – the prominent QAnon supporter Tim Stewart – after the PMO refused a request made by Guardian Australia.
A documentary-maker has accused the Cabinet Office of defying the 30-year rule in withholding details of the MI5 exposé
The Cabinet Office has been accused of “delay and deception” over its blocking of the release of files dating back more than three decades that reveal the inside story of the intelligence agent Peter Wright and the Spycatcher affair.
Wright revealed an inside account of how MI5 “bugged and burgled” its way across London in his 1987 autobiography Spycatcher. He died aged 78 in 1995.
David Owen condemns Cabinet Office’s ‘waste of public money’ in four-year bid to stop part of archive’s release
The Cabinet Office has been accused of a “grotesque abuse” of public funds in a freedom of information battle over the personal diaries of Lord and Lady Mountbatten in which costs are now expected to exceed £600,000.
Andrew Lownie, the author and historian, has fought a four-year legal battle over the papers that are in an archive saved for the nation after a fundraising campaign. They are now held at Southampton University.
Senior health officials who war-gamed the impact of a coronavirus hitting the UK, warned four years before the onset of Covid-19 of the need for stockpiles of PPE, a computerised contact tracing system and screening for foreign travellers, the Guardian can reveal.
The calls to step up preparations in areas already identified as shortcomings in the government’s response to Covid, emerged from a previously unpublished report of a health planning exercise in February 2016 that imagined a coronavirus outbreak.
The $250bn Future Fund says receiving 10 to 20 freedom of information requests a year is “administratively burdensome” and has confirmed proposed changes by the Morrison government would have shielded it from the kind of request that exposed investments in a company linked to the Myanmar military.
Last month, the Coalition introduced a bill granting wide-ranging exemptions to the Future Fund from freedom of information law, prompting criticism that it was a “calculated response” to an FoI that revealed its $3.2m investment in an Adani company criticised by the United Nations for an arrangement that gave financial support to the Myanmar military.
First-of-its-kind ruling paves way for trove of secret documents to be made public
The parliamentary committee scrutinising the Morrison government’s handling of the pandemic will demand a trove of secret documents after an extraordinary judgment finding national cabinet records can be accessed under the freedom of information regime.
The first-of-its-kind case in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal was brought by Senate crossbencher Rex Patrick, who argued the prime minister had no grounds to extend cabinet confidentiality to his national cabinet meetings with state premiers and chief ministers.
Exclusive: Home Office refusal to disclose how many women are in same position as Shamima Begum prompts action
The Home Office’s refusal to disclose the number of women who, like Shamima Begum, have been deprived of their British citizenship after travelling to join Islamic State is under investigation by the information commissioner.
The watchdog said it would step in after the government refused to share the data with a human rights group concerned about the conditions of British women and children detained in camps in north-east Syria, where conditions are dire.
Ban on Khodorkovsky-founded outlet follows Kremlin threat to block entire social network
Russia’s media watchdog has told Twitter to delete the account of an opposition news outlet following threats from Moscow to block the social network entirely if it did not remove “banned content” within a month.
The moves are part of a wider crackdown on social media and the opposition after protests supporting the jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, which were organised via online platforms.
‘Do we simply get gagged?,’ asks Greg Mullins as NSW and Queensland bushfires rage on. All the day’s events, live
Greg Mullins continued:
This is very frustrating for this group of emergency chiefs, because had we spoken back in April, one of the things we would have said was try to get more aircraft on lease from the northern hemisphere, this is going to be a horror fire season.
We are only going to have seven of those large air tankers you saw at Turramurra saving homes the other day. They can be a decisive weapon. I have just come back from California - they had about 30 on one fire. But because the fire seasons are overlapping with the northern hemisphere, they are not available when we need them most.
On the meeting the former fire and emergency chiefs have been seeking with the prime minister and other responsible ministers about Australia’s fire preparations since April, Greg Mullins said:
I wrote to the prime minister on two occasions. I didn’t expect a response to the first letter in April, because of the election in May. I wrote a couple of months later, or a few months later, there was a response, saying he was unable to meet and a message saying minister Taylor would be in touch.
When I was able to speak to minister Taylor’s office, I did point out that he was probably not the right minister to speak to, with minister Littleproud, maybe the finance minister, but definitely the PM – he was unable to assist with that.
This government fundamentally doesn’t like talking about climate change.
I will probably say ... that is all I will say about that.
ALP requests documents about Barr investigation into the Mueller report. Plus, new AFP commissioner faces Senate estimates, and media companies unite against secrecy laws. All the day’s events, live
Scott Morrison adds to the answer to Warren Snowdon’s question:
On 13 September of this year, I can confirm that the tender was awarded to Australian company Oricon an engineering company that, will lead the Kakadu road strategy and they’ll work in a consortium with PwC, and PwC Indigenous consulting, beginning the work immediately.
The roads of strategy will be developed in.conjunction with the tourism master plan, access to key sites and planned upgrades. I thought the member would be interested in that additional information.
The folders are stacked.
We are done as soon as Greg Hunt finishes this dixer.
The front page of every newspaper in Australia was blacked out on Monday as part of a campaign against moves by successive federal governments to penalise whistleblowing and, in some cases, criminalise journalism.
Legal expert tried to shed light on Australia’s efforts to prevent reef being listed as ‘in danger’ by Unesco
A legal expert has slammed Australia’s freedom of information regime after spending two years and more than $1,000 trying to shed light on Australia’s enormous lobbying effort to prevent the Great Barrier Reef from being listed as “in danger”.
The refusal of FOI requests is at its highest level since records began and a Guardian Australia investigation has found systemic problems
The Australian government is refusing access to documents at record rates, aided by a flawed freedom of information regime beset by delays, understaffing and unnecessary obfuscation.
A month-long investigation into the operation of freedom of information (FOI) laws has identified systemic problems causing vast volumes of government information to be kept secret. Guardian Australia has found: