UNCLASSIFIED

Good morning Ms Brandis-Dalton

Thank you for submitting a request for access to information you believe
to be held by the Department of Defence. In accordance with section
15(5)(a) of the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (FOI Act), I formally
acknowledge receipt of your freedom of information request for access to:

1 – Any documents that show statistics or summary information relating to
personnel who have been sent home early from deployment in recent overseas
operations (1999 to present). Specifically, I request any documents that
relate to MRTA (Medical Return to Australia), COPAS RTA (Compassionate
Return to Australia) and CRTA (Compulsory Return to Australia).

2 – Any report, memo, summary or recommendation (or similar) to the IGADF,
Minister of Defence or Chiefs of Army, Navy or Airforce in relation to
ERTA in the time frame indicated above.

3 – If no such documents currently exist I request that you produce such a
document in accordance with s17(1)(c)(i) of the Act.

The purpose of this email is to advise you of the intention to refuse the
request because a ‘practical refusal reason’ exists under section 24 of
the FOI Act.  The practical refusal reason is specified in subsection
24AA1(a)(i) of the FOI Act in that the work involved in processing the
request would substantially and unreasonably divert the resources of an
agency from its other operations as outlined below. 

Part 1 – This part of your scope seeks any documents from 1999 to present
which captures an 18 year timeframe. Eighteen years presents very large
search parameters. Australia’s Defence Force current operations
incorporate approximately 3300 Australian Defence Force personnel relating
to 12 overseas operations
([1]http://www.defence.gov.au/review/docs/op...). To request
documents for the current 12 operations would be substantial. An 18 year
search parameter is unreasonable.

Part 2 – Australian Defence Force personnel return early to Australia from
deployment for a variety of reasons as you have outlined in the scope of
your request. With any ERTA you would appreciate there to be a lot of
communication for the individual circumstances to be suitably reviewed and
evaluated. It would be a substantial and unreasonable diversion of the
Departments resources to seek any reports, memos, summary or
recommendation documents from the five named service areas for the last 18
years.    

Part 3 – You are requesting Defence to produce a document (if no such
documents were found to exist in part 1 and 2 of your request) in
accordance with section 17(1)(c)(i) of the FOI Act. Defence do not hold
the information you are seeking on a central database for easy extraction.
Section 17(1)(c)(i) of the FOI Act states: Where the agency could produce
a written document containing the information in discrete form. As Defence
does not have a system that holds these types of documents for easy
extraction, we are unable to action this part of your request.

Based on the above points and advice from the relevant action areas, under
section 24AA of the FOI Act and for the purposes of section 24 of the FOI
Act, Defence considers that a ‘practical refusal reason' exists
in relation to your FOI request. In accordance with section 24AB of the
FOI Act, Defence is required to consult with you advising of the intention
to refuse access to your request in its current form.

In accordance with paragraph 24AB(2)(c) of the FOI Act, I am the nominated
person with whom you should contact with a view to agreeing to one of the
following options:

    a.    withdraw your request

    b.    revise your request; or

    c.    indicate that you do not wish to revise your request.

As outlined in section 24AB(9) of the FOI Act, Defence is only required to
undertake this consultation process once, and you must contact me within
14 days to discuss.

If you have any questions in relation to your request, or require further
information, please contact the FOI team on [2][email address] and
quote reference FOI 178/18/19.

Kind regards

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UNCLASSIFIED

Good afternoon Ms Brandis-Dalton

Thank you for engaging in consultation on your FOI request and providing
revised parameters for Defence to consider as outlined below:

1 –Any documents that show statistics or summary information relating to
personnel who have been sent home early from deployment in recent overseas
operations (2013 to present). Specifically, I request any documents that
relate to MRTA (Medical Return to Australia), COPAS RTA (Compassionate
Return to Australia) and CRTA (Compulsory Return to Australia).

2 – Any report, memo, summary or recommendation (or similar) to the
Minister of Defence in relation to ERTA in the time frame indicated above.

Defence appreciate you have refined the date range for searches from 18 to
6 years and removed IGADF and Chiefs of Army, Navy or Airforce in relation
to ERTA from the scope for searching. However, your revision has not
removed the practical refusal reason.

As advised in our email dated 6 November 2018, Defence does not have any
documents that contain statistics/summary on early returns from
operations.  These documents would need to be produced, which would be a
considerable body of work. The search for documents that relate to MRTA,
COPAS, CRTA would be a significant undertaking to search and identify
documents within scope of your request.

Based on the above, Defence considers that a ‘practical refusal reason'
still exists in relation to the revised scope of your FOI request as the
work involved in processing the request would still substantially and
unreasonably divert the resources of this agency from its other
operations. 

In accordance with paragraph 24AB(2)(c) of the FOI Act, I am the nominated
person with whom you should contact with a view to agreeing to one of the
following options:

    a.    withdraw your request

    b.    revise your request; or

    c.    indicate that you do not wish to revise your request.

I encourage you to contact the FOI team and quote reference FOI 178/18/19
should you have any questions in relation to this email so we can assist
you in moving forward.

Kind regards

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