OFFICIAL
9 December 2024
FOI ref: 3804
Glenn Hamiltonshire
Right to Know
By email
: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxx.xxx.xx
Dear Mr Hamiltonshire
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST – CONSULTATION
I refer to your request, dated 21 November 2024 to the Treasury, for the fol owing documents
under the
Freedom of Information Act 1982 (
FOI Act):
I seek access to any documents (spreadsheets, summaries, quote documents etc.) from
the Review of the Reserve Bank dealing with the submissions received by the Review.
The list of public submissions can be found here:
https://aus01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fconsult.treasury.g
ov.au%2Freview-of-the-reserve-bank-of-australia%2Fpublic-
submissions%2Flist&data=05%7C02%7CFOI%40treasury.gov.au%7C0baae53203aa47b5
1d4608dd0967053f%7C214f1646202147cc8397e3d3a7ba7d9d%7C0%7C0%7C63867706
0422773582%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAu
MDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C60000%7C%7C%7
C&sdata=3INqF9QuvPVNc4NfSg4dq%2BzEMu94JzZwUwqU86Fg%2FHs%3D&reserved=0
For the purposes of this request, I agree to exclude private details of non-SES members of
the APS.
I also agree to redact/exclude any personal information not already public contained in
any of the documents (Example: email or contact details)
I am an authorised decision maker under section 23 of the FOI Act.
I am writing to tell you that I believe that the work involved in processing your request in its
current form would substantial y and unreasonably divert the resources of this agency from its
other operations due to the broad scope of your request. This is called a ‘practical refusal
reason’ under section 24AA of the FOI Act.
On this basis, I intend to refuse access to the documents you have requested. However, you
have an opportunity to revise your request before I make a final decision. This is called a
‘request consultation process’ in section 24AB of the FOI Act.
You have
14 days to respond to this notice in one of the ways set out below.
Langton Crescent
Parkes ACT 2600
Australia
P: +61 2 6263 2800
OFFICIAL
OFFICIAL
Why I intend to refuse your request
The scope of your request is very broad and does not contain sufficient specificity for the
Treasury to reasonably locate documents which are responsive to the request. The Review of
the Reserve Bank of Australia received a total of 117 submissions. Keyword searches
undertaken by just one Treasury staff member resulted in over 780 emails and over 440
sharepoint documents which would need to be individual y reviewed to determine whether or
not they meet the terms of your request. Extrapolating this figure to account for the other 17
members of staff who are likely to hold documents results in thousands of search results.These
would need to be reviewed to determine if they meet the scope of your request and remove
duplicate documents.
At a conservative estimate of one minute per document to assess for relevance, it would take
hundreds of hours just to review the search results to identify in scope documents. This figure
does not include time spent on processing your request to date, or the time required to
undertake further searches of other Treasury systems. This estimate also does not include the
time required to make a decision on any in scope documents, prepare documents for release
(if any), and draft a statement of reasons.
Additional time will also be required to complete any third party consultations. As the scope of
your request is seeking ‘any documents (spreadsheets, summaries, quote documents etc.)
from the Review of the Reserve Bank dealing with the submissions received by the Review’,
your request is likely to include personal and/or business information of the 117 parties which
made submissions to the Review. Treasury would be required to consult many of these parties
with a conservative estimate of two hours per consultation.
Accordingly, I am satisfied that this would place a significant burden on a limited number of
Treasury staff and would substantial y and unreasonably divert the resources of the Treasury
from its other operations.
Request consultation process
You have an opportunity to revise your request. This might mean narrowing the scope of the
request to make it more manageable or explaining in more detail the documents you wish to
access. This will assist the Treasury to focus on the documents that you are most interested in,
saving time and resources.
Examples of possible revisions include:
• Confine the request to documents related to one or two particular submissions.
• Confine the request to a particular document type (e.g. Ministerial submissions, reports.)
• Provide more details about the documents you are seeking. For example, you could
provide additional keywords which could be used to narrow the search results.
If you revise your request in a way that adequately addresses the practical refusal grounds
outlined above, we will recommence processing it. Please note that the time taken to consult
you regarding the scope of your request is not taken into account for the purposes of the
30 day time limit for processing your request.
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OFFICIAL
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What you need to do
You must contact us within 14 days from day after you receive this notice to:
• withdraw your request
• make a revised request
• tell us that you do not wish to revise your request.
You can contact us at by phone on (02) 6263 2800 or by email at
xxx@xxxxxxxx.xxx.xx.
If we do not hear from you within the 14 days, your request wil be taken to be withdrawn.
Questions?
The Treasury FOI team is available to help you during the consultation period by phone on (02)
6263 2800 or by email to
xxx@xxxxxxxx.xxx.xx.
Yours sincerely
Riki Polygenis
Riki Polygenis
Assistant Secretary
Macroeconomic Analysis and Policy Division
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