Department acts to stop release of documents on probe into land-clearing by company linked to Angus Taylor

The Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water has taken legal action to block Guardian Australia from accessing documents about an investigation into illegal land-clearing by Jam Land Pty Ltd in which the shadow treasurer, Angus Taylor, and his brother Richard had interests.

After a four-year battle with the department, which began in April 2018, the Australian information commissioner last month ordered the release of 11 documents.

They also appear to have included documents that have not been previously referred to.

Angus Taylor is a shareholder in Jam Land via his family company, Gufee. The case has been controversial because Taylor sought meetings in 2017 with senior environment officials and the office of the then environment minister Josh Frydenberg about the laws that protected the grasslands while the investigation was under way.

This is the second time this year that DCCEEW has taken Guardian Australia to the AAT to block the release of documents related to the so-called grasslands saga, after an order by the information commissioner.

The earlier challenge relating to three separate freedom of information requests by Guardian Australia was heard by the AAT in June and September. A ruling is pending.

The four-year battle by the Guardian using freedom of information laws reveals the problems of using such laws to gain access to government information.

Although the act states there is a right to government information unless there is an defined exemption, in practice the long delays often mean that information can be effectively withheld until the news cycle has moved on, governments have changed and the information is no longer relevant.

Appeals to the information commissioner take well over 12 months, due to understaffing and the volume of reviews being lodged.

Even when the office of the Australian information commissioner writes detailed rulings after viewing the documents, departments are now choosing to challenge them.

He criticised the Morrison government for refusing to abide by a decision from the AAT which found that the meetings of premiers and the prime minister during the Covid-19 pandemic were not covered by the federal cabinet exemption in the Freedom of Information Act.

Many of the appeals to the information commissioner flow from these types of applications.

The commissioner finalised 1,289 reviews in 2021-22, though most were not via decisions.

There were 58 appeals to the AAT, of which four were initiated by departments.