Dear Australian Taxation Office,

I understand negotiations for a new enterprise agreement for non-SES staff have progressed extremely slowly over the last 2 years.

As a taxpayer I am concerned any 'savings' from deliberate government delays are having a negative impact on employee morale which in turn would negatively impact the productivity of the ATO as a whole.

I am seeking the following documents in this FOI:

1. All documents which address, or mention, the impact of prolonged bargaining on employee morale. This includes all impact, whether actual, perceived, anticipated, or otherwise.

2. Documents which describe how employee morale has been measured over time, covering a period of at least the last 2 years.

3. All documents which detail the estimated productivity losses resulting from prolonged bargaining and/or decreased employee morale.

Yours faithfully,

Ato Nduvho

Dear FOI Team,

This is a valid request, made in accordance with the FOI Act.

The ATO cannot simply choose to ignore FOI requests that come through particular channels.

Indeed, the ATO does, in fact, respond to FOI requests made through the Right To Know website, as can be seen at the following link:

https://www.righttoknow.org.au/body/ato

Failure to process this request in accordance with the Act will result in due process being followed in accordance with the Act.

Yours sincerely,

Ato Nduvho

Dear FOI,

Further to my previous email, I draw your attention to Sect 15 of the FOI Act which outlines the requirements for requests.

Relevantly, the Act states:

Requirements for request

(2) 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).

(2A) The request must be sent to the agency or Minister. The request may be sent in any of the following ways:

(a) delivery to an officer of the agency, or a member of the staff of the Minister, at the address of any central or regional office of the agency or Minister specified in a current telephone directory;

(b) postage by pre-paid post to an address mentioned in paragraph (a);

(c) sending by electronic communication to an electronic address specified by the agency or Minister.

This request satisfies the above criteria. If you disagree, please detail your reasons.

Please continue to process this request in accordance with the Act.

Yours sincerely,

Ato Nduvho

Dear FOI,

Further to my previous email, the Australian Government Office of the Australian Information Commissioner's FOI Guidelines explicitly say that sites like Right To Know can be used to make FOI requests:

https://oaic.gov.au/freedom-of-informati...

"This requirement can be met by posting the request on a public website which forwards the request to a specified address of the agency or minister."

Accordingly I expect the ATO to respond to this FOI request in the usual manner.

Yours sincerely,

Ato Nduvho

Dear ATO,

With respect to this and my other FOI request, please advise if the ATO intends to fulfil the request via the Right to Know website.

If I do not hear from you by close of business 22 August 2016, I will take it that you refuse to fulfil the requests in accordance with the FOI Act, and will proceed with an OAIC complaint.

Yours sincerely,

Ato Nduvho

Dear Australian Taxation Office,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of Australian Taxation Office's handling of my FOI request 'Impact of protracted bargaining on ATO employee morale'.

The ATO has failed to process this request within the timeframes required by law. I do not accept there is a valid reason for your refusal to process this request solely on the grounds that it came to you via the Right to Know website.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.righttoknow.org.au/request/i...

Yours faithfully,

Ato Nduvho

Dear Australian Taxation Office,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of Australian Taxation Office's handling of my FOI request 'ATO purported manipulation of phone system performance statistics'.

I encourage the department to stop being intentionally obstructive to the freedom of information in Australia. While this request is publicly visible on Right To Know, it has been emailed to you at your nominated email address. It is unacceptable to ignore emails from specific domains such as @righttoknow.org.au

The reasons you have given for denying Right To Know requests are not acceptable and defy credibility of a reasonable person. Inadequacies of the ATO in procedural matters are a matter for the ATO and should not inhibit access to information which is a public right.

Yours sincerely,

Ato Nduvho

Dear ATO

This is a request for information under the FOI Act. I seek the following documents:

1. All documents which address, or mention, the impact of prolonged bargaining on employee morale. This includes all impact, whether actual, perceived, anticipated, or otherwise.

2. Documents which describe how employee morale has been measured over time, covering a period of at least the last 2 years.

3. All documents which detail the estimated productivity losses resulting from prolonged bargaining and/or decreased employee morale.

Yours faithfully,

Ato Nduvho