OFFICIAL
Good morning Trent

With reference to your FOI request below, the documents you request are more closely connected with the functions of another agency - Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation (CSC).

Under s16 of the FOI Act - Transfer of requests, CSC have accepted carriage of your request.

Regards

Rose Hatherley|Assistant Director - FOI Operations
Media and Information Disclosure Branch
Ministerial and Executive Coordination & Communication Division
Department of Defence

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-----Original Message-----
From: Trent Morrison-Francis <[FOI #8272 email]>
Sent: Friday, 7 January 2022 12:12 PM
To: FOI requests at Defence <[Defence request email]>
Subject: 20220107 1212 - [Trent Morrison-Francis]-[FOI requests at Defence] Freedom of Information request - Affected Veterans - Commissioner of Taxation v Douglas

EXTERNAL EMAIL: Do not click any links or open any attachments unless you trust the sender and know the content is safe.

Dear Department of Defence,

Please provide all documents that you hold that show the following

1. Number of Veterans in receipt of a Class A pension* 2. Number of Veterans in receipt of a Class B pension* 3. Number of Veterans in receipt of a Class C pension* 4. Number of veterans that had been APPROVED Withholding Variations for the FY 2021 applied by your agency 5. Number of veterans that had been REJECTED Withholding Variations for the FY 2021 applied by your agency 4. Number of veterans that had been APPROVED Withholding Variations for the FY 2022 applied by your agency 5. Number of veterans that had been REJECTED Withholding Variations for the FY 2022 applied by your agency 5. Number of veterans that had been PENDING Withholding Variations for the FY 2022 applied by your agency 6. Documents that clearly show the number of veterans that are receiving a LARGER YEARLY income after the relevant Taxation has been withheld at the END OF THE YEAR.
7. Documents that clearly show the number of veterans that are receiving a LARGER income after the relevant Taxation has been withheld in each pay run performed by the Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation.
8. Documents that clearly show the number of veterans that are receiving a SMALLER YEARLY income after the relevant Taxation has been withheld at the END OF THE YEAR.
9. Documents that clearly show the number of veterans that are receiving a SMALLER income after the relevant Taxation has been withheld in each pay run performed by the Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation.
10. If your agency has ever reported incorrect figures in relation to the above please provide any copy of a retraction, correction statement or any document confirming that you have modified the incorrect information.
11. Number of Veterans in receipt of a Class A pension* that your agency is refusing to treat as a Lump Sum Payment as defined by the relevant acts and the decision.
12. Number of Veterans in receipt of a Class B pension* that your agency is refusing to treat as a Lump Sum Payment as defined by the relevant acts and the decision.
13. Number of Veterans in receipt of a Class C pension* that your agency is refusing to treat as a Lump Sum Payment as defined by the relevant acts and the decision.
14. The TOTAL number of Veterans that have applied for a review of previous tax returns that were affected by the decision to date regardless of the status of this request.
15. The TOTAL number of Veterans that have applied for a review of previous tax returns that were affected by the decision to date that your department still has not made corrections to.
16. Any documents that your department has sent to the "Veteran Community" directly via post, fax, email advising them that they can apply for Disability Superannuation Benefit "DSB" after the Federal Court handed down the Douglas decision.
17. Copies of any ministerial briefing documents that relate to the above-mentioned case.
18. Any other document that you deem necessary to release as part of this request to help the wider community understand or interpret the documents above.

I believe due to the significant amount of misinformation that is being presented by government agencies about this matter I note that as per the Freedom of Information Act an agency such as yours is not able to use the public interest exemptions for the following reasons

1. access to the document could result in embarrassment to the Commonwealth Government, or cause a loss of confidence in the Commonwealth Government; or 2. access to the document could result in any person misinterpreting or misunderstanding the document.

Furthermore, I remind you that under the act that the agency, or the Minister, must publish the information to members of the public generally on a website by
(a) making the information available for downloading from the website; or
(b) publishing on the website a link to another website, from which the information can be downloaded; or
(c) publishing on the website other details of how the information may be obtained.

In relation to the above, the agency or Minister must comply with this section within 10 working days after the day the person is given access to the document.

To remove any doubt we are asking for all schemes that Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation manages including

CSS
ABN: 19 415 776 361
RSE: R1004649

DFRDB
ABN: 39 798 362 763

Military Super
ABN: 50 925 523 120
RSE: R1000306

ADF Super
ABN: 90 302 247 344
RSE R1077063

ADF Cover
ABN: 64 250 674 722

The period for the request relates to all documents created on or after the 01st January 2017 by either your office and or the Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation (where practicable if your office is not the creator of the documents).

Yours faithfully,

Trent Morrison-Francis

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