Calls for more transparency in Government have been dismissed as "foolishness" by Labour, Immigration and Housing Minister Senator David Burch.

Government's Leader in the Senate criticised The Royal Gazette's A Right to Know: Giving People Power campaign and Opposition calls to Government to pass PATI (Public Access to Information) legislation.

He said it was up to Government to decide on policy and then inform the public afterwards, although the focus of this newspaper's A Right to Know campaign is on freedom of information rather than the decision-making process.

Speaking in the Senate, Sen. Burch said: "Openness and transparency to me is you get to know what's going on around here. For someone living 50 years in this country, 40 years under a previous government, you've never seen openness and transparency until the PLP came into power.

"We had more Press conferences and releases that year than you've ever held in your history.

"The Right to Know and the calls from the Opposition, it is to do with the fact that they're not in control, so you don't know what's planned.

"You can't - that's the process. I'm not going to tell you what I'm thinking until we come up with it and then we'll tell you, so why should someone be privy to the whole process of bouncing ideas off the wall.

"You want to be in with that? You need to be in Government for that. You had it for 400 years, it's not your turn right now."

Sen. Burch then dismissed the calls for more transparency as "foolishness".

He said: "In governing you must be able to have discussions about what you're going to do and then make decisions, and the Government must be the first ones to tell you what they're doing."