Dear Special Minister of State,

I hereby request, under the Freedom of Information Act 1982, copies of all official documents of the Minister relating to or considered when responding to Senate Order 330 (10 July 2014) except:

a) copies of the order or motion;
b) the letter from the Clerk of the Senate dated 10 July 2014 regarding the order;
c) the letter from the Minister to the Clerk of the Senate dated 10 July 2014 (as tabled); or
d) duplicate copies of other documents within the scope of the request.

I also make the application that all costs for the processing of this request be waived on the grounds that the release of this information is in the public interest, and will enhance the transparency of the process and the public debate surrounding the software that underpins our democracy.

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Regards,

Brendan Molloy
President
Pirate Party Australia

Dear FOI Requests,

Is this request currently being processed?

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Regards,

Brendan Molloy
President
Pirate Party Australia

Dear Chak,

This is surely an error. I received an acknowledgement email from your department stating that it had been received.

You can clearly see the reply, dated August 29, 2014, on the following webpage: https://www.righttoknow.org.au/request/d...

It literally says "we have received your email" in the first paragraph.

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Regards,

Brendan Molloy
President
Pirate Party Australia

Dear Chak,

The FOI Act is quite clear that the clock starts ticking a day after the agency receives a request, which would have been August 30. This means that the deadline should be September 29, not October 30, given I have received a written response from your department confirming receipt of the request.

This October deadline is entirely unacceptable given the request was sent on August 29. As the Department responsible for accepting requests on behalf of the Special Minister of State, and as there are no other contact details provided other than a link to the Department of Finance, I see no excuse for this failure of process.

I would also note that your department is listed as the responsible agency for accepting FOI requests on behalf of the Special Minister of State according to Appendix 4 of the OAIC's Annual Report 2012-2013, and while it claims to not be authoritative, it reflects the fact that I was unable to find any other way to make an FOI request to the SMOS:

http://www.oaic.gov.au/images/documents/...

Why should I now have to be penalised for the mishandling of my request by your Department?

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Regards,

Brendan Molloy
President
Pirate Party Australia

Dear Chak,

Thank you for the clarification.

I had just completed preparing an email to the OAIC to seek advice on the sudden addition of 30 days to the processing period. I was just about to hit send when your email hit my inbox. :)

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Regards,

Brendan Molloy
President
Pirate Party Australia