Documents not available for download from your FOI log or reasoning
Posty made this Freedom of Information request to Department of Defence as part of a batch sent to 5 authorities
This request has been closed to new correspondence from the public body. Contact us if you think it ought be re-opened.
Dear FOI Department,
It has been noticed, that in some occasions, there are documents on your Freedom Of Information Disclosure Log where you have put the most redundant text next to FOI disclosures—the equivalent of “if you would like access to these documents, please email/contact us for access”.
Any person reviewing the information on that site would of course be after the documents. It is puzzling that, on some occasions, you have made the documents available and others not.
I believe this is not in the spirit of the FOI act section 11C, and thus I request—under the Freedom of Information Act 1982—copies of the following documents:
All documents as is (that is, redacted or unredacted) from all previously made decisions on your department's FOI log that are currently not available for download direct from the website.
My preferred method of delivery for this information is for it to be placed on your department's Freedom of Information disclosure log web page as per part A) of 11C of the FOI Act.
Should this request be successful you can put a simple list of the documents that were made available from the request, or whatever is most expedient, on the log.
I apologise for my pessimism, but past FOI experiences have led me to believe this request may elicit a response similar to “this request would divert too many resources of your department to complete”. Should you be thinking this, you have nobody to blame but yourselves—your department made this metaphorical bed.
Should you be seriously considering a practical refusal, my alternative request is for any documents that your department holds relating to the decision to include text on your freedom of information disclosure log similar to "contact us for access to this document".
In addition I request the total of the number of times any member of the public has asked for access to each said non-website published successful for documents on the FOI disclosure log other than the original successful applicant.
I do accept there is a very remote possibility there is a “Good Reason” for these not being available, and I hope these are contained within the documents provided as I cannot foresee any.
In the interests of expediency, I am willing to consider Administrative Access to said documents, should the document be provided within 30 days ( plus any public holidays in-between) of the sending of this email. After this time - the FOI Act applies as normal in all instances and any requests for extension will be denied without a supplied very good reason.
Regards,
Posty
UNCLASSIFIED
Good afternoon Posty,
I refer to your attached request, please note the Department publishes all
decisions and documents on its disclosure log as per section 11C of the
FOI Act.
Under section 11C it states:
(3) The agency, or the Minister, must publish the
information to members of the public generally on a website:
(c) publishing on the website other
details of how the information may be obtained.
Where documents have not been published we have included the statement “if
you would like access to these documents please email us/contact us for
access:” This statement meets the requirement of 11C of the Act.
You may request access to the documents that have this statement in place,
however due to the size of a majority of the documents they will have to
be placed on a disc and sent via post. This will require a postal address.
Please note requesting ‘all documents not published’ in one request will
attract a section 24AA practical refusal as the disclosure log dates back
to 2010 with approximately 29 requests not published. You have also
requested the number of times a year members of the public have requested
these documents. This request alone would attract a potential section 24AA
as it would require cross checking our records database with all
correspondence for possible requests for the documents. Please note, all
requests for documents are supplied to the requestor.
Grateful if you could please indicate how you wish to proceed with this
request.
Kind regards
FOI Inquiries
Freedom of Information
Information Management and Access
Governance and Reform Division
Department of Defence
CP1-06-003
PO Box 7910 Canberra ACT 2610
[1][email address]
IMPORTANT: This email remains the property of the Department of Defence
and is subject to the jurisdiction of section 70 of the Crimes Act 1914.
If you have received this email in error, you are requested to contact the
sender and delete the email.
IMPORTANT: This email remains the property of the Department of Defence
and is subject to the jurisdiction of section 70 of the Crimes Act 1914.
If you have received this email in error, you are requested to contact the
sender and delete the email.
References
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1. mailto:[email address]
Dear FOI Inquiries,
I think you'll find that there are no size requirements on the righttoknow.org.au website - there is a helpful guide for how you can upload the documents directly to this website here individually:
https://www.righttoknow.org.au/help/offi...
this request link is here: https://www.righttoknow.org.au/request/d...
this does not require any waste of government resources on physical media as well postage and time/effort burning.
should you have any concerns regarding this please advise - but at bear minimum there will always be a digital way to collaborate with external parties with government at govteams.gov.au.
righttoknow.org.au is greatly preferred.
Yours sincerely,
Posty
Dear FOI,
Crikey!
in addition I did not notice that you were going to refuse access if i asked for all 29 to be made available on the website.
In that case - i will reduce the scope down to 14 of the most recent documents not available for download from the website currently.
That cuts the workload by over 50%.
I want to understand the barriers you're facing from putting them on the website - because if it meets the requirement as you say it is it would need to be the best way to do it when interpreting the FOI act ( RE interpretation - http://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/c... ).
what type of file sizes are we talking about? what's the largest single file?
Yours sincerely,
Posty
Dear FOI Inquiries,
Could you please confirm whether you're still working on the request or whether this is just a deemed refusal?
Yours sincerely,
Posty
UNCLASSIFIED
Good morning,
Your request was deemed as withdrawn on 19 February 2019 as we did not receive a response from you within the standard consultation period allowed under the FOI Act.
However, we can advise that we have been working towards making all the missing documents accessible for download on the Disclosure Log as you requested. Your follow up email is quite timely as the first stage of release is fast approaching. We have been advised that some of the disclosure documents will be available on the website by the end of May.
The department is continuing to work towards having all disclosures under the Freedom of Information Act available to the public as per section 11C of the FOI Act. This task has taken longer than we anticipated but is steadily progressing.
Thank you for your email and we hope this response addresses your query.
Regards
FOI Inquiries
Freedom of Information
Information Management and Access
Governance and Reform Division
Department of Defence
CP1-06-003
PO Box 7910 Canberra ACT 2610
IMPORTANT: This email remains the property of the Department of Defence and is subject to the jurisdiction of section 70 of the Crimes Act 1914. If you have received this email in error, you are requested to contact the sender and delete the email.
IMPORTANT: This email remains the property of the Department of Defence and is subject to the jurisdiction of section 70 of the Crimes Act 1914. If you have received this email in error, you are requested to contact the sender and delete the email.
Dear FOI Inquiries,
I have mixed feelings to this response, but it is overall ending as positive.
If you go to this request on right to know, you will see that I responded to you well within the timeframe necessary for it to be within a standard response.
Twice, in fact.
https://www.righttoknow.org.au/request/d...
I do understand however that you are the *Department of Defence* and that you likely have some heavy duty mail filtering going on that may have contributed to this. Legally speaking, I don't think your failure to respond stands up but I'm not going to stand on ceremony and make a complaint because of your commitment expressed to access. Others might not be so understanding.
All I ask of you in future, if you ever receive another request from righttoknow.org.au - that you check the website PRIOR to marking the request as refused due to no response. Please.
If you could - given the miscommunication - it would be greatly appreciated if you respond to this email once you have completed the task of uploading the first batch of missing documents. Your reply will be public and available to all.
Time permitting I plan to be writing about this interaction with a lot of government departments on this matter - and it would help greatly to inspire some more public confidence with the FOI process.
I will review your disclosure log sometime post the end of May 2019 and evaluate whether I need to make another request.
Yours sincerely,
Posty
UNCLASSIFIED
Good afternoon,
Further to our correspondence to you on 8 May 2019, I would like to advise that Defence have uploaded 19 of the missing disclosures and they are now available for public viewing on the Defence FOI Disclosure Log.
The department is continuing to work towards having all disclosures under the Freedom of Information Act available to the public as per section 11C of the FOI Act.
We will inform you when this project is complete.
Kind regards
FOI Inquiries
Freedom of Information
Information Management and Access
Governance and Reform Division
Department of Defence
CP1-06-003
PO Box 7910 Canberra ACT 2610
IMPORTANT: This email remains the property of the Department of Defence and is subject to the jurisdiction of section 70 of the Crimes Act 1914. If you have received this email in error, you are requested to contact the sender and delete the email.
UNCLASSIFIED
Good afternoon,
Further to the below correspondence of 22 May 2019, I would like to advise that Defence have now uploaded the remaining documents on to the Defence FOI Disclosure Log.
This now completes all departmental action on this matter.
Kind regards
FOI Inquiries
Freedom of Information
Information Management and Access
Governance and Reform Division
Department of Defence
CP1-06-003
PO Box 7910 Canberra ACT 2610
IMPORTANT: This email remains the property of the Department of Defence and is subject to the jurisdiction of section 70 of the Crimes Act 1914. If you have received this email in error, you are requested to contact the sender and delete the email.
IMPORTANT: This email remains the property of the Department of Defence and is subject to the jurisdiction of section 70 of the Crimes Act 1914. If you have received this email in error, you are requested to contact the sender and delete the email.