And on the secrecy point, there’s more to say.

It came up again when we were on the panel, when an audience member asked how it affects Australian politics and news media.

There are a lot of answers to that question — but the one I emphasized involved the dearth of independent data.

You can watch the Twitter livestream here to see exactly what I said, but here’s a slightly fuller explanation with a couple of the examples I had in mind.

Exhibit A: Immigration and Egalitarianism

Australia is in the midst of a heated debate about how much immigration is too much, but there’s a lot we don’t know (beyond anecdotal cases) about who gets in or turned down and how that might be changing.

The Department of Home Affairs did not publicly release last year’s annual immigration report so we can all see how the system works. Rather, a few months ago, just a piece of it leaked to The Australian — noting a migration decrease, in line with The Australian’s conservative politics.

Our requests for the raw data and full report have been repeatedly denied.

More broadly, when it comes to research around race and discrimination, Australia has fewer trustworthy statistical sources than it needs, whether it’s about achievement in schools, health care, or other sectors that might help the country see how its multiculturalism plays out in public institutions.

Academics tell me the data collection either isn’t there, hampering in-depth analysis, or it’s in bits and pieces.