FOI Reference: LEX 11622
File Reference: 24/36621
1 November 2024
CR
via Right to Know
By email: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxx.xxx.xx
Dear CR
Re: Freedom of Information Request
I refer to your request received by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (the
department) for access to documents under the
Freedom of Information Act 1982 (the
FOI Act).
I am writing to provide you with a decision about your request.
I have identified documents relevant to your request. After careful consideration, I have
decided to grant you access to an edited copy of the documents with irrelevant material
removed.
Your request
On 1 October 2024, you sought access to:
1. The most recent 30 notices of charges issued to FOI applicants.
For each of these 30 requests, if applicable, please also provide:
Any subsequent decisions regarding charges folowing applicant contention.
Any subsequent decisions regarding charges fol owing internal or external review.
Please exclude the fol owing information:
Personal information of FOI applicants.
On 2 October 2024, the department acknowledged your request and provided you with a
link to our quarterly reporting statistics that are provided to the Office of the Australian
Information Commissioner (OAIC), who subsequently publish that data. The latest available
report is for the 2022-23 financial year.
On the same day, the department had an email exchange with you, with the relevant
information extracted below:
You
To clarify, I seek to review the documents related to your charges decisions, not just the
publicly available information. Therefore, I would like to proceed with my request for the
documents.
However, I am open to refining the scope of my request. Could you please inform me how
many charge notices the department has issued between 1 July 2023 and 1 October
2024?
Department
In relation to your question, in the period 1 July 2023 to 1 October 2024 (inclusive), we
have issued 4 charges notices, with no notices issued in 2024.
Would you like to amended your request to only include those 4 matters, proceed with
your original request (last 30), or some other amended scope?
You
Would it be feasible for your department to process a reduced scope of 14 letters—
comprising the 10 identified in the 2022-23 FOI statistics dataset, along with the 4
charge notices issued since then?
Department
[C]an you please confirm that the below amended scope accurately reflects the
documents that you are seeking (or otherwise please amend):
1. The most recent 14 notices of charges issued to FOI applicants.
For each of these 14 requests, if applicable, please also provide:
2. Any subsequent decisions regarding charges fol owing applicant contention.
3. Any subsequent decisions regarding charges fol owing internal or external review.
Please exclude the fol owing information:
i)
Personal information of FOI applicants, including any reasons they have
provided for contesting the charges/decision.
ii)
Emails that attached the charges notices/decision letters
You
Unless further clarification is needed, I confirm the revised scope as follows:
1. The most recent 14 notices of charges issued to FOI applicants.
For each of these 14 requests, if applicable, please also provide:
2. Any subsequent decisions regarding charges fol owing applicant contention.
3. Any subsequent decisions regarding charges fol owing internal or external review.
Please exclude the fol owing information:
i) Personal information of FOI applicants, including supporting evidence or
details of personal circumstances in a financial hardship contention.
ii)
Emails that attached the charges notices/decision letters.
During the processing of your request, it was identified that for the period 1 July 2022 to
1 October 2024 there had been 16 charges notices issued, and not the 14 initial y indicated
to you. The error related to the search parameters, with the original parameters based upon
the date of the FOI request received, and not the date the charges notice was issued.
As such, we subsequently interpreted the scope of your request to include the 16 charges
notices.
Authority
I am an officer authorised under section 23 of the FOI Act to make decisions in relation to
FOI requests.
Reasons
In making my decision I have taken into account:
• the terms of your request and amended request;
• the documents within the scope of your request;
• the FOI Act; and
• the guidelines issued by the Australian Information Commissioner under section 93A
of the FOI Act (FOI Guidelines).
The reasons for my decision and for the application of exemptions under the FOI Act to the
document are set out below. Where I refer to sections of the FOI Act, these are available at
www.legislation.gov.au.
Irrelevant and excluded material (section 22(1)(a)(i ) of the FOI Act)
In your request your expressly excluded the fol owing information/documents from the
scope of your request:
i)
Personal information of FOI applicants, including supporting evidence or details
of personal circumstances in a financial hardship contention.
ii)
Emails that attached the charges notices/decision letters.
Some of other material excluded from the documents released to you is outside the scope
or could reasonably be regarded as irrelevant to your request (section 22(1)(a)(ii) of the
FOI Act).
In determining what is relevant to your request, I have taken into account the terms of your
request and the email which you received from the department on 2 October 2024, in which
you were invited to respond if you required the personal information of junior staff from
ministerial offices and government officials not in the Senior Executive Service (SES) or
equivalent, including their email addresses and contact numbers, together with al
signatures, mobile phone numbers, departmental inboxes and technical transmission details
including reference numbers. As you have not stated that you require this information, I
have decided to remove it from the documents being released to you.
Review rights
Information about your review rights is set out in the
Attachment for your reference.
Contact
Should you have any queries regarding this matter please contact the Freedom of
Information Section by email (xxx@xxxx.xxx.xx).
Yours sincerely
Sarah Roberts
Assistant Secretary
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
Attachment
Your review rights
Internal review
You may apply for internal review of the decision (section 54 of the FOI Act). The internal
review application must be made within 30 calendar days from the day you receive this
notice.
Where possible, please attach reasons why you believe review of the decision is necessary.
The internal review will be carried out by another officer within 30 days.
Any request for internal review should be directed via email to xxx@xxxx.xxx.xx or
addressed to:
Freedom of Information Section
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
R G Casey Building
John McEwen Crescent
Barton ACT 0221
Australia
Australian Information Commissioner
You may apply to the Australian Information Commissioner to review my decision
(section 54L of the FOI Act). To do this, you must contact the Australian Information
Commissioner within 60 calendar days from the day you receive this notice.
You may also make a complaint to the Australian Information Commissioner about the
Department’s actions in relation to this decision (section 70 of the FOI Act). Making such a
complaint about the way the Department has handled your FOI request is a separate
process to seeking review of my decision.
Further information on applying for an Australian Information Commissioner review is
available at: www.oaic.gov.au/freedom-of-information/your-freedom-of-information-
rights/freedom-of-information-reviews.
Further information about how to make a complaint is available at:
www.oaic.gov.au/freedom-of-information/your-freedom-of-information-rights/freedom-of-
information-complaints.
Third party review rights
Further information about third party review rights are available on the Office of the
Australian Information Commissioner’s (OAIC) website at www.oaic.gov.au/freedom-of-
information/freedom-of-information-guidance-for-government-agencies/freedom-of-
information-reviews/personal-and-business-information-third-party-review-rights.
