Dear Department of the House of Representatives,

I would like to request from the Department of House of Representatives all documents of correspondents between the ABC and the Leader of the Opposition and his Office regarding requests for interview on ABC News 24.
The period for this request is the 22nd August 2012 to 9th April 2013.

Yours faithfully,

Luke Mansillo

Dear Department of the House of Representatives,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of Department of the House of Representatives's handling of my FOI requests (13/02-06):
1. All documents of correspondents between the ABC and the Leader of the Opposition and his Office regarding requests for interview on ABC News 24.
2. All documents of correspondents between the ABC and the Leader of the Opposition and his Office regarding requests for interview on the ABC's Lateline programme.
3. All documents of correspondents between the ABC and the Leader of the Opposition and his Office regarding requests for interview on the ABC's 7.30 programme.
4. Copies of the Leader of the Opposition's diary and calendar used with House of Representatives resources between 16th August 2010 and 9th April 2013. This is not limited to electronic diaries, schedules, and physical paper calendars.
5. (i) All correspondence from the ABC to the Leader of the Opposition and his Office requesting his appearance on Q&A since 16 August 2010; and
(ii) all correspondence replying from his Office detailing requests made regarding his appearance on Q&A since 16 August 2010;and
(iii) all correspondence between other Liberal and National Party Members of the House of Representatives and their staff regarding the Leader of the Opposition and the ABC's Q&A in any way, shape or form since 16 August 2010.

I am bemused by the House of Representatives response as a prior FOI request at the ABC confirmed the existence of 26 documents discussing Tony Abbott's appearance on the Q&A programme between the Opposition Leader's Office & the ABC from the 16 August 2010 & 2 February 2013.

I refer to the ABC's response: https://www.righttoknow.org.au/request/5...

As there are documents to that effect, confirmed by the ABC, I would like an inquiry into the House of Representative's ability to discover such documents and secondly to recheck the existence of documents.

As those documents exists, as they clearly do, it is important to establish why the Department of the House of Representatives has not provided them to me. The documents either do no exist within the reach of the Department or they do within access of FOIs. All APH email accounts of staffers are susceptible for FOI requests.

It is highly unusual that the ABC would would first contact a non-APH email account to arrange an appearance with their staff when personal parliamentary staffs. Staffers are provided an aph account so that they can function in their jobs; their jobs include managing media. If there is a lack of electronic paper trail something must be asked: why are parliamentary staff not using their aph email accounts when communicating with government organsisations & media, namely the ABC.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address:
http://www.righttoknow.org.au/request/ab...

Yours faithfully,

Luke Mansillo