Dear Australian Bureau of Statistics,

As per the Senate Procedural order of continuing effect No. 12 (Indexed lists of departmental and agency files), all government departments and agencies are required to publish online indexed lists of agency files on a half-yearly basis[1].

To clear up any potential ambiguity, the ABS is considered a statutory agency as per s16(4)(a) of the Australian Bureau of Statistics Act 1975, and at the very least, item (2) of the procedural order should apply to this agency.

I have conducted a thorough search of the ABS website, both via Google and manually, and unfortunately found nothing. Particularly pertinent is that the IPS refers me to a report that contains no information that could be considered relevant to this procedural order.

You can see examples of these publications below for the Attorney General's Department[2], DFAT[3] and the ATO[4].

I am requesting access to the index of files for January–June 2016, and July–December 2016.

I would rather that this is not considered a freedom of information request as the ABS has been obliged by the Senate since the 1990s to publish these documents. However, if this position is rejected, please consider this a formal request under the Freedom of Information Act.

Should this be considered a Freedom of Information request, I also request that all processing fees are waived as the request is quite obviously in the public interest. The procedural order that requires the publication of these documents has been in effect for almost two decades in its current form, and exists precisely for reasons of the public interest.

Apologies about the terrible links, but it is a result of Australian government IT after all.

[1] http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Busi...
[2] https://www.ag.gov.au/Publications/Pages...
[3] http://dfat.gov.au/about-us/corporate/ne...
[4] https://www.ato.gov.au/About-ATO/Access,...

Yours faithfully,

Brendan Molloy

Dear Danielle Gillett,

Thanks for the prompt reply.

Yours sincerely,

Brendan Molloy