Ombudsman rules for public interest
by Shane Sody
The State Ombudsman has ruled that there is no valid reason for secrecy about a licence fee, paid by a charity to lease a garden in your Adelaide Park Lands.
The Adelaide Day Centre for Homeless Persons is paying what a manager cheerfully described as a “peppercorn” rent for a one-hectare produce garden, behind the old Adelaide Gaol in Bonython Park / Tulya Wardli (Park 27).
Self-styled “transparency warrior” former Senator Rex Patrick has been battling, for months, to get a copy of the lease, including the amount that is payable under the lease.
Location of the Roma Mitchell Garden
The garden is tended by volunteers and clients of the Adelaide Day Centre for Homeless Persons. For decades, it’s been producing fresh food for Adelaide charities.
However the actual leasing arrangements have been secret, until this year.
Back in August, in response to a Freedom of Information request from Mr Patrick, the Department of Environment and Water released the terms of what it called a “non-exclusive licence” that extends out until 28 February 2034. You can read a copy (with the licence fee redacted i.e. blacked out). (PDF, 10 pages, 93 Kb).
Even though the amount paid was known to be merely a token, peppercorn rent, the Department’s CEO, Ben Bruce told Mr Patrick in August 2024 that he would not release the precise amount, because that:
“could reasonably be expected to have a substantial adverse effect on the financial or property interests of the State or an agency; and would, on balance, be contrary to the public interest; and
“would have a substantial adverse effect on the effective performance by an agency of the agency's functions”.
Rex Patrick appealed this decision to the State Ombudsman.
The Ombudsman, via one of her managers, Benjamin Authers, last month agreed with Mr Patrick and ordered the Department to release the $$ figure in the licence.
“I am unable to discern how disclosure of the licence fee figure could have a substantial adverse effect on the effective performance on its [of the agency’s] functions. “ Mr Authers wrote.
Self-styled “Transparency warrior” Rex Patrick
And how much is the amount payable under that licence? Ït took another 30 days after the Ombudsman’s decision, before the State Government finally relented.
The figure is one dollar per year, “if demanded by [the] Minister”.
Yes, the State Government actually spent several months arguing repeatedly that releasing that tiny detail about a site within your Park Lands would have a “a substantial adverse effect on the financial or property interests of the State or an agency
Mr Patrick has welcomed the Ombudsman’s decision, but not the Government’s secrecy and delays:
“On a simple read of South Australia’s FOI laws, this document should never have been claimed exempt and withheld from the public” Mr Patrick said.
“The initial refusal and subsequent fight has wasted public resources and drawn out a culture of secrecy in the Department of Environment and Water in relation to the Park Lands.
Rex Patrick has also recently obtained FOI documents which explain why there has been little if any progress towards World Heritage listing for your Park Lands.
Participants on an APA Guided Walk on 4 August 2024, were welcomed into the Roma Mitchell Garden, to inspect not only the garden but also the historic, heritage-listed, 19th century “Powder Magazine” where the Colonial government of the late 19th century stored explosives.
Read more about the Roma Mitchell Garden here:
The author of this article, Shane Sody, is the President of the Adelaide Park Lands Association and the editor of the semi-monthly newsletter, "Open Green Public".
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