A former federal information commissioner is calling for an overhaul of freedom of information (FOI) processes following yet another appeal in a long-running legal battle over access to the diaries of Attorney-General George Brandis.

John McMillan, who is now the acting New South Wales Ombudsman, said FOI laws had become a political plaything at public cost and it was time Federal Parliament followed the lead of other governments to bring them back to their original purpose.

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Senator Brandis signalled on Wednesday he would appeal to the full bench of the Federal Court an order to release eight months of his diary entries to shadow attorney-general Mark Dreyfus.

Mr McMillan told the ABC the almost two-year battle between the Coalition and Labor over the diaries could have been avoided with better disclosure rules.

"There is something to be gained by having more predictable standard practises about disclosure rather than tying up enormous resources in disputes of this kind," he said.

He is renewing calls for Federal Cabinet ministers to regularly publish their diaries on the internet, after they have been edited to remove sensitive information such as private phone numbers.

Doing so, he said, would remove the need to ask for diaries under FOI laws and put the information into the public space without a political battle.

"In this current age, where Government uses the web to distribute information that it wants the public to see about its activities and achievements, they should also distribute information about what they are doing that will be of the public interest."

In December, the Administrative Appeals Tribunal found Senator Brandis's office had been wrong in rejecting an FOI request from Mr Dreyfus for a print-out of the Attorney-General's weekly electronic diary for dates between September 2013 and early 2014.

Mr Dreyfus wished to examine who Senator Brandis was meeting in the lead-up to key policy decisions in his portfolio.

He said the fight against releasing the diary was "an extraordinary waste of public money" and Senator Brandis was trying to set an "appalling precedent" by blocking access to the diary.