Document setting out topics relevant to Australian membership of Open Government Partnership.
Dear Department of Finance,
This is an application for the most recent version of the document referred to by Secretary Halton in Senate Estimates on 20 November 2014 that contains 162 particular recommendations on 19 different topics relevant to Australian membership of the Open Government Partnership. The Secretary volunteered information about some of the content on that occasion.
Please deal with this request in accordance with your Administrative Access scheme if practicable, otherwise as an application under the Freedom of Information Act.
My address for service of notices is this website.
Thank you in anticipation.
Yours faithfully,
Peter Timmins
Thank you for your email to the Freedom of Information section of the
Department of Finance (Finance). We have received your email and will
endeavour to respond to you as soon as possible.
You may view Finance’s Freedom of Information procedures and processes on
[1]http://www.finance.gov.au/foi/foi.html
Further information relating to Freedom of Information can be found on the
Office of the Australian Information Commissioner’s [2]website.
[3]Signature blocks-blue bar.jpg
Freedom of Information
Legal Services Branch
Department of Finance
References
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1. http://www.finance.gov.au/foi/foi.html
2. http://www.oaic.gov.au/freedom-of-inform...
UNCLASSIFIED
Hi Peter
The document you are interested is publically available on http://www.opengovguide.com/
I trust this satisfies your request and consider that you did not make an FOI request.
Regards,
Chak
Dear FOI Requests,
Chak, if we can be this informal.
I'm sure you have read the Secretary's testimony to the Senate Estimates Committee.
Any listener or reader of the record would have the impression Finance is looking at specific matters to do with Australian membership of the OGP.
I'm after this document, not generic suggestions and topics that may or may not be relevant to Australia's situation.
An unspecified document on the OGP website is not the relevant document sought.
If Finance is working its way through such a generic document I'm asking for access to the latest version of the Australian document to see what you regard as relevant and where you are up to in your important work.
As to your sentence "I trust this satisfies your request and consider that you did not make an FOI request", first it doesn't satisfy the request, second I'm sure you are familiar with OAIC guidance that each agency establish an Administrative Access scheme to facilitate access to documents without the need for a formal FOI application where practicable.
Please deal with my application on such basis but if it is not practicable, treat it as a formal FOI application.
Thanks Chak, and I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Yours sincerely,
Peter Timmins
Thank you for your email to the Freedom of Information section of the
Department of Finance (Finance). We have received your email and will
endeavour to respond to you as soon as possible.
You may view Finance’s Freedom of Information procedures and processes on
[1]http://www.finance.gov.au/foi/foi.html
Further information relating to Freedom of Information can be found on the
Office of the Australian Information Commissioner’s [2]website.
[3]Signature blocks-blue bar.jpg
Freedom of Information
Legal Services Branch
Department of Finance
References
Visible links
1. http://www.finance.gov.au/foi/foi.html
2. http://www.oaic.gov.au/freedom-of-inform...
UNCLASSIFIED
Good morning Mr Timmins,
Thank you for your further email to the Department of Finance (Finance).
I'm sure you have read the Secretary's testimony to the Senate Estimates
Committee.
Any listener or reader of the record would have the impression Finance is
looking at specific matters to do with Australian membership of the OGP.
I'm after this document, not generic suggestions and topics that may or
may not be relevant to Australia's situation.
An unspecified document on the OGP website is not the relevant document
sought.
If Finance is working its way through such a generic document I'm asking
for access to the latest version of the Australian document to see what
you regard as relevant and where you are up to in your important work.
Document identified
Finance used the October 2013 version of the open government guide from
OGP to informally assess Australian Government compliance to the
recommendations of the guide. Please find this guide attached.
Administrative access
As requested, we have dealt with your application under administrative
access and as such have not treated your request as a formal application
under the Freedom of Information Act 1982.
Further information
Please contact the FOI team, on the below details, if you have any
questions or if you would like to submit a formal FOI request.
Regards,
[1]Department of Finance and Deregulation
FOI Officer
Legal Services Branch
Corporate Services Division
Department of Finance
T: 02 6215 1783 E: [2][email address]
UNCLASSIFIED
References
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2. mailto:[email address]
Dear Anonymous FOI Officer Legal Branch,
That's a bit more formal and distanced than previous correspondence with Chak!
You continue to ignore the clarification of my request so I guess I will have to make a formal application, further delaying access and adding to the cost of administering the act.
I'll be in touch.
Peter Timmins
Thank you for your email to the Freedom of Information section of the
Department of Finance (Finance). We have received your email and will
endeavour to respond to you as soon as possible.
You may view Finance’s Freedom of Information procedures and processes on
[1]http://www.finance.gov.au/foi/foi.html
Further information relating to Freedom of Information can be found on the
Office of the Australian Information Commissioner’s [2]website.
[3]Signature blocks-blue bar.jpg
Freedom of Information
Legal Services Branch
Department of Finance
References
Visible links
1. http://www.finance.gov.au/foi/foi.html
2. http://www.oaic.gov.au/freedom-of-inform...
Peter Timmins left an annotation ()
I classified this as a refuse as having clarified my request the Department goes blithely on its merry way referring to a publicly available document that isn't what I want. Soon as I get a moment I'll ask again in even more explicit terms.
Sigh.....
Mark R. Diamond left an annotation ()
Not quite the same request as the one here, but related ... https://www.righttoknow.org.au/request/s...
Mark R. Diamond left an annotation ()
The fact that the application stated that "administrative access" was sought, is not, I think, a good reason for failing to fulfill the basic requirement of identifiying a specific document that satisfies the request.
As it is, the respondent department points not to a specific document or a specific web-page, but merely to a website. I looked at the website. I had no idea what document the repondent had in mind, nor how I might find it.
Moreover, the fact that administrative access was sought did not prevent the respondent department from actually copying the relevant document into the reply, irrespective of the fact that it is also posted on a the website of some other organisation! So why didn't they include it in the reply?
And then there is the matter of the quality of reply, including salutation and so forth, that one might reasonably expect from a government department ...