Subject to the following provisions of the FOI Act, I have made a decision to grant
access in part 1 document.
Reasons for decision
Material taken into account
In making my decision, I have had regard to the following:
• your FOI request dated 23 November 2024.
• the FOI Act, in particular 3, 11, 11A, 15, 17, 22 and 26 of the FOI Act
• the Guidelines issued by the Australian Information Commissioner under
section 93A of the FOI Act to which regard must be had in performing a
function or exercising a power under the FOI Act (FOI Guidelines)
Creation of a document in response to your FOI request (section 17)
Pursuant to section 17 of the FOI Act, I have made a decision to create 1 document in
response to your request. Under section 17 of the FOI Act, if an FOI request is made
for a document that could be produced by using a computer ordinarily available to
the agency for retrieving or collating stored information, an agency is required to
deal with the request as if it was a request for written documents to which the FOI
Act applies.
The FOI Guidelines [at 3.204] explain that section 17 may require an agency to
produce a written document of information that is stored electronical y and not in a
discrete written form, if it does not appear from the request that the applicant
wishes to be provided with a computer tape or disk on which the information is
recorded. The obligation to produce a written document arises if:
• the agency could produce a written document containing the information by
using a computer or other equipment that is ordinarily available’ to the
agency for retrieving or collating stored information (section 17(1)(c)(i)), or
making a transcript from a sound recording (section 17(1)(c)(ii)); and
• producing a written document would not substantially and unreasonably
divert the resources of the agency from its other operations (section 17(2)).
If those conditions are met, the FOI Act applies as if the applicant had requested
access to the written document and it was already in the agency’s possession.
Your request sought access to all statistics submitted to the OAIC by the NDIA in
2024. The Freedom of Information branch advised me that the material sought is not
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available in a discrete form but instead is able to be produced in a written document
through the use of a computer.
In light of this, a document has been created under section 17 in response to your
request and is included in the schedule of documents attached.
Access to edited copies with irrelevant and exempt matter deleted (section 22)
In accordance with section 22 of the FOI Act, an agency must consider whether it
would be reasonably practicable to prepare an edited copy of documents subject to
an FOI request where material has been identified as exempt or irrelevant to the
request.
I have identified the fol owing material within the documents to be irrelevant or out
of scope of your request:
• back-end system information pertaining to the OAIC’s administration of the
FOI Statistics Portal.
Accordingly, I have made an edited copy of the document which removes this
irrelevant material and otherwise grants you
access in part to the material in scope
of your request.
Searches undertaken
The FOI Act requires that all reasonable steps have been taken to locate documents
within scope of an FOI request.
In response to your request, the fol owing line areas of the OAIC conducted
reasonable searches for documents relevant to you request:
• Freedom of Information Branch
Searches were conducted across the OAIC’s various document storage systems
including:
• general computer files
Having consulted with the relevant line areas and undertaken a review of the records
of the various search and retrieval efforts, I am satisfied that a reasonable search has
been undertaken in response to your request and that all relevant documents have
been found.
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Disclosure log decision
Section 11C of the FOI Act requires the OAIC to publish documents released under
the FOI Act on the OAIC’s disclosure log within 10 days of release, except if they
contain personal or business information that would be unreasonable to publish.
I have made a decision to publish the documents subject to your request on the
OAIC’s disclosure log.
Release of documents
The document is enclosed for release.
The document is identified in the
attached schedule of documents.
Please see the following page for information about your review rights.
Yours sincerely,
Amanda Hodges
Assistant Director
19 December 2024
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If you disagree with my decision
Internal review
You have the right to apply for an internal review of my decision under Part VI of the
FOI Act. An internal review will be conducted, to the extent possible, by an officer of
the OAIC who was not involved in or consulted in the making of my decision. If you
wish to apply for an internal review, you must do so in writing within 30 days. There
is no application fee for internal review.
If you wish to apply for an internal review, please mark your application for the
attention of the FOI Coordinator and state the grounds on which you consider that
my decision should be reviewed.
Applications for internal reviews can be submitted to:
Office of the Australian Information Commissioner
GPO Box 5218
SYDNEY NSW 2001
Alternatively, you can submit your application by email to xxx@xxxx.xxx.xx, or by fax
on 02 9284 9666.
Further review
You have the right to seek review of this decision by the Information Commissioner
and the Administrative Review Tribunal (ART).
You may apply to the Information Commissioner for a review of my decision (IC
review). If you wish to apply for IC review, you must do so in writing within 60 days.
Your application must provide an address (which can be an email address or fax
number) that we can send notices to, and include a copy of this letter. A request for
IC review can be made in relation to my decision, or an internal review decision.
It is the Information Commissioner’s view that it will usually not be in the interests of
the administration of the FOI Act to conduct an IC review of a decision, or an internal
review decision, made by the agency that the Information Commissioner heads: the
OAIC. For this reason, if you make an application for IC review of my decision, and the
Information Commissioner is satisfied that in the interests of administration of the
Act it is desirable that my decision be considered by the ART, the Information
Commissioner may decide not to undertake an IC review.
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Section 57A of the FOI Act provides that, before you can apply to the ART for review
of an FOI decision, you must first have applied for IC review.
Applications for IC review can be submitted online at:
https://webform.oaic.gov.au/prod?entitytype=ICReview&layoutcode=ICReviewWF
Alternatively, you can submit your application to:
Office of the Australian Information Commissioner
GPO Box 5218
SYDNEY NSW 2001
Or by email to xxxxx@xxxx.xxx.xx, or by fax on 02 9284 9666.
Accessing your information
If you would like access to the information that we hold about you, please contact
xxx@xxxx.xxx.xx. More information is available on the Access our information page
on our website.
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