Fitzroyalty vs City of Yarra – food hygiene FOI battle round three
In my previous installment of this series about freeing information about food hygiene standards in Fitzroy from the secretive and out of touch City of Yarra council, I hypothesised that my appeal against the partial release of information would be rejected. I received a letter dated 10 June 2009 from the council informing me of their rejection of my appeal. I’m now free to take my case to the Victorian Ombudsman. I’m now at step 5 of the 6 step process I outlined in my original post.
In a related development, the situation in South Australia has been resolved in favour of the public’s right to access information about it’s own health and safety. An MP challenged the Adelaide City Council to release inspection and prosecution information and fought the issue all the way to the SA State Ombudsman, who has ruled in his favour.
In Adelaide the number expiation notices given to food businesses quadrupled between 2007 and 2008. Adelaide City Council is not planning to appeal. It knows the issue is indefensible.
Acting Ombudsman Ken MacPherson is quoted in Adelaide Now as saying:
Exactly. The City of Yarra is out of touch with reality by fighting my FOI.
How will the Victorian Ombudsman respond to my application? I’m supposed to apply to VCAT now and then the Ombudsman but that sounds like a waste of time. The NSW and SA examples demonstrate an overwhelming precedent that the Victorian government cannot ignore.
Below is the content of my letter posted today to the Victorian Ombudsman:
Ombudsman Victoria
Level 9 North Tower
459 Collins Street
Melbourne VIC 3000Wednesday, June 17, 2009
To whom it may concern,
I am a resident of Fitzroy in Melbourne and I have a particular interest in food. I have sought to obtain information from the City of Yarra council concerning the food hygiene inspections and prosecutions it has undertaken in relation to Fitzroy food service businesses with limited success.
I made an FOI request to council to provide this information to me, including details of inspections, offences and prosecutions. The council has provided some data as a result of my request but removed the names of the businesses and the details of the offences. I appealed against this decision and my appeal has been rejected. I have enclosed copies of the council’s letters.
Consumers require this information so they can make safe and informed choices about the food service businesses they patronise. I believe that the public interest and the public’s right to know which food service businesses are safe, and which are unsafe, is of far greater value and concern than any expectation of privacy on the part of businesses being inspected.
As a resident and ratepayer in the City of Yarra I am annoyed that I pay rates to help fund the delivery of these services, yet I am alienated from the results of this work. I believe that in having paid for the service, the ratepayers of Yarra morally own the information collected and have every right to access it.
There are two significant precedents in favour of increased government transparency and accountability in this area.
In NSW the state government agency the NSW Food Authority now publishes a weekly press releases summarising the latest breaches in food hygiene standards as a result of its inspections: http://www.foodauthority.nsw.gov.au/aboutus/media-releases/.
It also publishes a searchable register of penalty notices: http://www.foodauthority.nsw.gov.au/penalty-notices/.
In South Australia the State Ombudsman has recently ruled in favour of transparency and has determined that the Adelaide City Council must publish food hygiene information. For further information see:
- http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,25623447-5006301,00.html
- http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/06/12/2596130.htm?section=business
- http://foi-privacy.blogspot.com/2009/06/food-hygiene-coming-out-of-cupboard.html
It is illogical to have different state standards in this important matter of public health. Victorian politicians refuse to recognise changing community attitudes towards institutional transparency and the public interest. They have failed to lead on this issue and are refusing to even follow the lead of other states.
I seek a ruling from you concerning the right of citizens to make informed choices about their health in relation to the prepared food they purchase for consumption. I expect that this ruling will apply state-wide, as the recent ruling does in South Australia.
Specifically, I call on you to endorse my pursuit of transparency over secrecy in relation to food hygiene standards in Fitzroy.
I ask you to determine that, for the public interest to be upheld, local governments in Victoria, including the City of Yarra, must publish all food hygiene inspection results, detailing the businesses, the specific outcomes of inspections including what breaches of health standards have made, and the resulting actions and prosecutions.
I also ask that the City of Yarra be required to deliver this information to me in a convenient electronic form, such as the .xls spreadsheet it sent me on my initial FOI request.
I am a citizen journalist and the publisher of the Fitzroy local news site Fitzroyalty. I am one of the most read bloggers or citizen journalists in Melbourne and I plan to publish this information on my site: http://indolentdandy.net/fitzroyalty/.
I believe that commercial media has failed in its duty to monitor the efficacy of state and local governments on behalf of the public in relation to this matter and that hyperlocal or citizen journalists are better placed examine and report on issues of local importance.
I have already published the raw data supplied by council and have been reporting on my pursuit of this issue. My site receives more than 20,000 hits each month and I have hundreds of regular readers in Metropolitan Melbourne eager to learn the outcome of this matter.
I look forward to your response.
Yours sincerely
Dr Brian Ward
http://indolentdandy.net/fitzroyalty/
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Other posts you may find relevant and interesting
- Fitzroyalty vs City of Yarra – food hygiene FOI battle round one, 25 May 2009
- FOI on food hygiene in the City of Yarra, 21 May 2009
- naming and shaming food hygiene standards breaches, 12 August 2008
- Fitzroyalty vs City of Yarra – food hygiene FOI battle round four, 2 July 2009
- Local government food hygiene enforcement: London vs Melbourne, 27 February 2010
June 17th, 2009 at 1:05 pm
Great stuff, Brian! I’m watching this thread with particular interest.
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June 20th, 2009 at 4:55 pm
Like Sir Garence, I too am following with keen interest. I can’t understand the variety of responses from the different states on what is a no-brainer. Shame these places and they’ll pick up their act. If others heed the warning, standards will no doubt become a higher priority. Everyone wins. Keep up the great work!
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June 20th, 2009 at 5:33 pm
health inspection reports on NYC restaurants are published online.
search before you eat.
here’s a link.
I used to buy SPY mag in the 80′s when Graydon Carter now ed. of Vanity Fair ran these reports in it as humour. Now he owns a very costly cafe and if you look it up, you will see The Waverly Inn has rats, big NYC rats.
I think we should have this same online searchable facility to refer to before we eat out.
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June 20th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
Sub-standard food outlets should be marked with ‘a canary’ on their window, as unroadworthy cars are.
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June 30th, 2009 at 10:02 am
News from WA – the Stirling council has refused to publish the names of the worst offending businesses on the state governemtn name and shame website. It prefers to protec businesses rather than the public.
The WA government is planning to overrule local governments by introducing mandatory reporting of hygiene prosecutions.
Stirling has been exposed as useless and pathetic for inspecting and prosecuting a bakery for serious breaches of food hygiene for 5 years without shutting them down.
Further evidence that local governments simply cannot be trusted to ensure food hygiene and maintain public health. Local governments are businness lobby groups and must be held accountable for their unethical secretive behaviour.
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