Public commitment to freedom of information on all sides of politics is “rank hypocrisy”, the former information commissioner, John McMillan, has said in his first interview since leaving office.

“Nobody is ever prepared to say we should repeal the FOI Act and yet they hate it,” McMillan said. “I know they do. And I know why they hate it, but there’s a failure to have a sensible debate.”

The Coalition’s decision to scrap the watchdog that oversees freedom of information requests was a “terrible response” to the government’s objectives to reduce the number of agencies, he said.

In May last year the government announced it would abolish the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC), which performs a range of freedom of information, privacy and information policy functions.



However, the bill to abolish the office failed to gain Senate support after being introduced last October and the office has since continued with reduced funding.

In his speech announcing his challenge to Tony Abbott as prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull made a point of stressing the importance of open government.

But McMillan told the Guardian the decision to scrap the office was a blow to open government. He called for more debate on freedom of information and hit back at claims by senior public officials who said FOI had gone too far.

“It’s a great shame that government decided to abolish it,” said McMillan.

“It was inevitable that a body like this would encounter issues early on in changing culture, developing efficient procedures, working out the most efficient methods. We had just achieved that ... so all of that experience is lost.

“I’ve no doubt it’s all to do with two things; irritation with FOI and that the portfolio department is the attorney general’s department, which never understood information policy, which never understood transformational change on information issues and so found the whole thing an irritant.”

The federal government said it abolished the office because it was part of an “unnecessarily complex system which caused processing delay” and it would save $10.2m.

McMillan said he could understand the need to reduce the number of agencies.

“But the measure that they came up with, which was just to return FOI to the previous days where disputes go to the Ombudsman or the Administrative Appeals Tribunal and there is no independent regulator providing advice and developing guidelines, was just a terrible response to the government’s objectives,” he said.

McMillan said the office had made significant improvements since it began.

The OAIC’s statistics show the finalisation of freedom of information matters rose steadily from 16.5% in 2010-11 to 55.7% in 2011-12, 82.6% in 2012-13 and 123.3% (including cases from the previous year) in 2013-14.



McMillan said he accepted the government’s decision to abolish the office at the time, and chose not to question it publicly. But he stressed he took steps to answer the criticisms of the OAIC, outlining the case to a Senate inquiry into the bill and also writing to the attorney general, George Brandis. He said the rationale for the abolition of the office was still unclear.

“I’ve never had a frank explanation as to where the initiative or idea came from. Anybody to whom I’ve ever spoken says it came as a big surprise to them that government would abolish the OAIC. Nobody is really ever prepared to go on the public record for a frank discussion about it. The explanation given is that the OAIC had become inefficient and there had been unacceptable delays, and giving it to the Ombudsman and the OAIC would be more efficient,” McMillan said.

“Though I’ve never debated the policies, I wrote to government very early on pointing out that was factually wrong. That was the explanation given in the explanatory memorandum, that government was looking for a more efficient way to deal with FOI disputes.”

The OAIC handles freedom of information reviews and complaints, as well as an extensive range of privacy investigation and enforcement functions. The bill has stalled in the Senate because it has failed to gain the support of enough crossbench senators, or Labor and the Greens.

The uncertainty has had a significant toll on the OAIC. The acting information commissioner, Timothy Pilgrim, has now essentially assumed the role of all three commissioners after the departure of McMillan and the freedom of information commissioner, James Popple. The OAIC’s Canberra office has closed – leaving McMillan to work from home while he was still in his role – and a number of staff have left the organisation.

Pilgrim’s term expires in three months, but it is unclear what will happen after that date.

“It can’t continue. it’s very hard to maintain staff morale. It’s very hard to recruit really talented people on an ongoing basis when they don’t know whether the office is going to disappear from one month to the next,” said McMillan.

“That’s why they’ve got to come up with a plan. It doesn’t have to be the OAIC. I was always in favour before the OAIC of having a specialist unit within the Commonwealth Ombudsman’s office. But you need a special arrangement, you need a special team and how that will play out I don’t know.”

McMillan said he favoured the existing OAIC models.

The former commissioner ​said Labor was also heavily resistant to FOI

The former commissioner said Labor was also heavily resistant to FOI and some aspects of open governance.

“It’s all led by the tone at the top. When we started we had wonderful support at senior levels of government, so you got a real culture change. But after about a year or so it became clear – and this is during Labor – that government doesn’t like FOI and it’s acceptable, it’s culturally, acceptable to thwart FOI requests,” McMillan said.

“Except in the early days,when the initiative was being led by John Faulkner and Joe Ludwig, the tone was as antagonistic to FOI as it has been under the present government.”

“There’s a lot of political horse-playing around who is the most secretive government. In my experience there was a lack of enthusiasm from both sides of politics. Senior people in government just don’t like FOI.”

He also criticised recent comments by treasury secretary John Fraser and the Australian Public Service Commissioner John Lloyd about freedom of information for their recent comments speaking out in opposition to FOI.

“I think it’s terrible that the head of treasury and the head of the public service commission feel comfortable in speaking out and saying FOI has gone too far, without having to explain what is meant by it’s gone too far,” he said.

“You get all these mists thrown around, about you can’t have frank briefing at senior levels. FOI protects any document that needs protection. The exemptions are quite adequate to protect any document, and the IC review decisions make it plain.”

Following Turnbull’s ministerial reshuffle, matters relating to “public data policy, including Gov 2.0 and related matters” were added to his responsibilities.

The prime minister’s office did not respond to questions about whether he considered the OAIC’s functions to fall within those responsibilities, and whether he had considered reversing plans to abolish the office.

A spokeswoman for the attorney general, George Brandis, said in a statement: “The government is committed to transparent, accountable and open government. The OAIC continues to operate and its privacy functions continue to be funded on an ongoing basis. Additional resources were also provided to the OAIC for the continued exercise of FOI functions in 2015-16.”