Our reference: FOIREQ23/00055

Dear George

Freedom of Information request

I refer to your request for access to documents made under the Freedom of
Information Act 1982 (Cth) (the FOI Act) and received by the Office of the
Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) on 21 March 2023.

Scope of your request

In your email you seek access to the following:

“The purpose of this request is to get a better understanding of how the
actions of Commonwealth officials are affecting the allocation of the
OAIC’s scarce resources.

I would like to know how many extant IC review requests are before the
OAIC solely on the ground of a deemed refusal decision (i.e. the principal
officer of an agency or a Minister is taken to have refused access to a
document because they did not provide a decision to an access applicant).

I would also like to know which agencies and Ministers have failed to
provide decisions.

For example, if there are 10 extant IC review requests that have been
lodged on the ground of a deemed refusal decision, and 2 of those are in
respect of deemed refusal decisions from the principal officer of the
Department of Prime Minister, and the other 8 are in respect of deemed
refusal decisions from the Attorney-General, then please provide a
documents showing that:

a) 2 IC review requests have been lodged in respect of deemed refusal
decisions from the principal officer of the Department of Prime Minister;
and

b) 8 IC review requests have been lodged in respect of deemed refusal
decisions from the Commonwealth Attorney-General.

Under the Freedom of Information Act 1982, I request access to documents
identifying the number of extant IC review requests as at 20 March 2023,
broken down by agency (as that term is defined in section 4 of the FOI
Act) or Minister, which have been lodged on the ground of a deemed refusal
decision on the parts of the relevant principal officers of agencies or
Ministers.

To the extent that it applies, I would appreciate it if you would deal
with this FOI request in accordance with section 17 of the Freedom of
Information Act 1982.

Despite having made a formal FOI request, my preference would be for the
OAIC to provide the requested document pursuant to an administrative
release of information, and I would be pleased to cooperate in any
reasonable way to assist you in facilitating access to the documents
requested.”

In order to process your request as efficiently as possible, I will
exclude duplicates and early parts of email streams that are captured in
later email streams from the scope of this request, unless you advise me
otherwise.

We will not identify you as the FOI applicant during and consultation
process. However, documents that are within the scope of your request that
we may need to consult third parties about may contain your personal
information.

Timeframes for dealing with your request

Section 15 of the FOI Act requires this office to process your request no
later than 30 days after the day we receive it. However, section 15(6) of
the FOI Act allows us a further 30 days in situations where we need to
consult with third parties about certain information, such as business
documents or documents affecting their personal privacy.

As we received your request on 21 March 2023, we must process your request
by 20 April 2023.

Disclosure Log

Documents released under the FOI Act may be published online on our
disclosure log, unless they contain personal or business information that
would be unreasonable to publish.

If you would like to discuss this matter please contact me on my contact
details set out below.

Kind regards

[1][IMG] Toby Behl-Shanks | Paralegal

Legal Services

Office of the Australian
Information Commissioner

GPO Box 5288 Sydney NSW 2001 |
[2]oaic.gov.au

+61 2 9942 4024 |
[3][email address]
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Our reference: FOIREQ23/00055

Dear George,

Please see the attached Decision, Schedule and Document in relation to
your request for information.

Kind regards

Jessica

[1][IMG]   Jessica Summerhill

Lawyer

GPO Box 5288 Sydney NSW 2001

Office of the Australian Information Commissioner

P 1300 363 992  E [2][email address]

The OAIC acknowledges Traditional Custodians of Country across Australia
and their continuing connection to land, waters and communities. We pay
our respect to First Nations people, cultures and Elders past and present.

[3]Subscribe to Information Matters

Notice:

The information contained in this email message and any attached files may
be confidential information, and may also be the subject of legal
professional privilege. If you are not the intended recipient any use,
disclosure or copying of this email is unauthorised. If you received this
email in error, please notify the sender by contacting the department's
switchboard on 1300 488 064 during business hours (8:30am - 5pm Canberra
time) and delete all copies of this transmission together with any
attachments.

References

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2. mailto:[email address]
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