The Information Commissioner has made a formal recommendation to the ATO to start processing to Freedom of Information requests made via Right to Know. More Information on this can be found here: https://www.openaustraliafoundation.org....

My comment is an addition to the comments by Mr. Fairless. I also make a specific suggestion.

Although the Australian Taxation Office wrote to the applicant to say that the Office would not process the application, something did happen. The thing that happened was that 30 days after the date when the application was lodged, section 15AC(3) of the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (Cth) had the effect of making a "deemed decision" to refuse the request ... this is unless the Commissioner grants more time.

Because of the effect of the Act, I make the following suggestions to the applicant:
(1) Do not write to the Australian Taxation Office and complain that a decision on your request is "overdue". It is not. A deemed decision was made 30 days after you lodged the application.
(2) Instead, use this Right to Know page (or you can create a new request page) to write exactly the same request to the Australian Taxation Office. If you want to grumble, then you can always say (in the new request email) that you made the same request earlier on this-and-then date.

I make this suggestion because if you only write and complain that your request is "overdue", then after a delay, the Australian Taxation Office might (correctly) write back to you and say, "No it is not". Of course, the purpose of this would be to delay to process your request (because the office will now have suddenly a lot of requests) but it will still have the effect that you must lodge a new request. Therefore, you can lose nothing to use this Right to Know page to make a new request now! It will start the clock again.

In the annotation at this place ( https://www.righttoknow.org.au/request/s... ) I questioned the conclusion of Mr Fairless that the ATO was still not properly processing requests. Now I am not so sure. There are several serious problems with the ATO response here. Number 1, it is an access refusal decision but it gives the applicant not information about his rights for review of the decision. Number 2, it is a refusal decision that does not give a clear explanation of the basis for the refusal under the FOI Act. Number 3, it does not comply with the guidelines of the OAIC because it does not say who is making this decision. Maybe another complaint to the Information Commissioner is required.