UNCLASSIFIED

Good Afternoon,

Please see attached acknowledgement of your FOI request.

Kind Regards

_____________________________________
Shannon Bevan
FOI Officer
FOI & Privacy Policy Section
Ministerial, Executive and External Accountability Branch (MEEAB) Department of Immigration and Border Protection
Telephone: (02) 6264 4667
Email: [email address]

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UNCLASSIFIED
 
Our references: FA 13/10/00021; ADF2013/31856
 
To M J
Via email at: [FOI #409 email]
 
Dear M J
 
I am writing to you in response to your email on 20 September 2013,
purportedly under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (Cth) and asking
that the Department of Immigration and Border Protection provide you with
a copy of the following document:
 
     “Dear Minister for Immigration
 
     Under FOI Act please provide pages 56-58 of the incoming government
brief provided to you.”
 
The purpose of this email is to advise you that I consider the request may
be invalid under the FOI Act. I will explain my reasons in full below.
 
Requirements of the FOI Act
 
The requirements for a valid FOI request are set out in section 15(2) of
the Act, which provides that:
 
The request must:
 
(a)  be in writing; and
 
(aa) state that the request is an application for the purposes of this
Act; and
 
(b) provide such information concerning the document as is reasonably
necessary to enable a responsible officer of the agency, or the Minister,
to identify it; and
 
(c) give details of how notices under this Act may be sent to the
applicant (for example, by providing an electronic address to which
notices may be sent by electronic communication).
 
The Act envisages that an agency and the applicant will, where necessary
and appropriate, engage in dialogue about the request. The Act also
envisages that there may be instances when an agency will wish to send a
formal legal notice to an applicant, for example, when the agency believes
that it would be a substantial and unreasonable diversion of resources to
process the request or intends to charge the applicant for processing the
request. In addition, the Act provides applicants with review rights which
are activated by the act of the agency ‘notifying’ the applicant of the
decision.
 
In order to engage in this dialogue, the applicant must provide an address
through which the applicant intends to be contactable. It should be an
address through which the agency will be able to write to the applicant
and receive a response to the communication. It must also be an address
through which the agency can reasonably assume that legal notices will be
received, read and responded to by the applicant. This requirement has
been an element of a valid FOI request since the Act was first enacted in
1982.
 
Issues regarding your request
 
I am not satisfied that the email address you have provided meets the
requirement of ‘details of how notices under this Act may be sent to the
applicant’ (s.15(2)(c) of the Act). In particular, it does not appear to
be an address to which the agency could send a ‘notice’. The address you
have provided appears to be an address for publication of correspondence
on the
internet.
 
Next steps
 
Please confirm that the email address that you have provided is an address
to which the Department can send you notices by close of business Monday
14 October 2013. If you have not provided confirmation by that time, I
will close this request as invalid.
 
Yours sincerely
 
Angela O'Neil
Manager FOI Help Desk
FOI & Privacy Policy Section
Department of Immigration and Border Protection
Email: [1][email address]
UNCLASSIFIED
 
 

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References

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1. mailto:[email address]