Friday, 23 June 2017

Freedom of Information
Australian Taxation Office
GPO Box 4889
SYDNEY NSW 2001

Dear FOI Contact Person,

Request under the Freedom of Information Act 1982
In re Open source software and associated costs or donations
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In January 2011, the Australian Government released a policy requiring agencies to consider open source software for all software procurements. The Open Source Software Policy, which is available from the Department of Finance and Deregulation website, applied to any ICT procurement activity initiated after 1 March 2011 (https://www.finance.gov.au/sites/default... )

I request a list of open source software products that were in use by the Australian Taxation Office between 1 July 2011 and 30 June 2016. I also request details of any obligatory payments made in respect of the software (e.g., to satisfy licensing conditions) and details of any non-obligatory payments (e.g., donations in support of the software) made in respect of the software during that period. I do not expect that there will be existing documents that fall within the scope of my request but I also anticipate that s 17(1) of the FOI Act will apply.

The email address attached to this request is the relevant address for the purposes of s 15(2)(c) of the FOI Act.

Yours faithfully,

Mark R. Diamond

Freedom of Information
Australian Taxation Office
GPO Box 4889
SYDNEY NSW 2001

Dear FOI Contact Person,

Something appears to have gone wrong. I was expecting a notice of decision about my request. Instead I have received a brief note about a website.

My address for the purposes of s 15(2)(c) of the Act is the email address (with a righttoknow.org.au) domain that is attached to this email.

Please ensure that any decision notice is sent promptly to this address.

Yours sincerely,

Mark R. Diamond

Freedom of Information
Australian Taxation Office
GPO Box 4889
SYDNEY NSW 2001

Dear FOI Contact Person,

Yet again, you appear not to have sent me the decision notice required under the Act but instead to have sent me something else ... something about searching somewhere for something that might be relevant to me.

If you have made some sort of decision about my request, please send the decision notice TO ME, as you are required to do. As I remarked in my previous email, my address for the purposes of s 15(2)(c) of the Act is the email address (with a righttoknow.org.au) domain that is attached to this email. Please ensure that any decision notice is sent promptly to this address.

Yours sincerely,

Mark R. Diamond

Freedom of Information
Australian Taxation Office
GPO Box 4889
SYDNEY NSW 2001

Dear FOI Contact Person,

Complaint
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Please pass this email on to the person who is responsible for handling complaints relating to the Freedom of Information Act.

I write to complain about the handling of my recent request for documents relating to open source software. A decision was due on 23 July 2017. A decision notice has still not been sent to me despite my repeated requests. In fact, I have not even received a reply to my latest request for a decision notice.

As was clear from my original email, and as I have repeated, my address for the purposes of s 15(2)(c) of the Act is the email address (with a righttoknow.org.au) domain that is attached to this email. I want you to resolve my complaint by doing as you are required to do by law, and ensuring that any decision notice (assuming of course that you have reached a decision) is sent promptly to this address.

Yours sincerely,

Mark R. Diamond

Dear FOI,

I take it that that is a refusal to deal with my complaint.

Yours sincerely,

Mark R. Diamond