Medical conditions & visa grants
Dear Department of Immigration and Border Protection,
In accordance with the Freedom of Information act, I would like to request the following information.
'List of medical conditions that required a referral to the Ministry of the Commonwealth that were ultimately awarded Visas in year 2015 - 2016. No patient details are required or details of any medicals undertaken. Just the name of the condition for each referred applicant that were granted a 189, 190 and 489 visa
Yours faithfully,
Louise Staden
UNCLASSIFIED
Our references: FA 17/02/00489 ; ADF2017/20704
Dear Ms Staden
Please find attached the acknowledgement of receipt for your recent FOI
Request.
Request for an extension of time
Please be aware that the Department has seen a significant increase in the
number of FOI requests received by this agency. As a result there are
expected delays involved with the processing of FOI requests at the
present time. Generally, requests will be processed in the order that they
are received. The Department will endeavour to finalise your request as
quickly as possible.
For this reason the Department seeks your agreement under s.15AA of the
FOI Act to extend the timeframe for the processing of your request by 30
days.
It would assist the Department in managing its FOI caseload if you could
provide a response to this request by close of business, Friday, 17
February 2017.
Please do not hesitate to contact me should you wish to discuss.
Yours sincerely
Julia Wu
FOI Officer/Freedom of Information Section
Freedom of Information, Privacy & Records Management Branch
Corporate Services Division | Corporate Group
Department of Immigration and Border Protection
E: [1][email address]
UNCLASSIFIED
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Dear FOI,
I acknowledge your request for an extension and agree to you taking more time to respond.
I look forward to hearing from you
Yours sincerely,
Louise Staden
UNCLASSIFIED
Our references: FA 17/02/00489 ; ADF2017/20704
Dear Ms Staden
Thank you for granting an extension of time for us to process your request.
Please note all requests are being processed in date order of receipt notwithstanding whether or not an extension of time is being granted. The updated statutory due date to process your request will be Saturday 1 April 2017.
We will continue to progress your request.
Kind regards
Julia Wu
FOI Officer/Freedom of Information Section Freedom of Information, Privacy & Records Management Branch Corporate Services Division | Corporate Group Department of Immigration and Border Protection
E: [email address]
Dear FOI,
I agreed to your extension request and you advised the statutory due date was the 1st April. As I'm sure you are aware, by law, you should've responded by now??
Please advise asap when this response will be received
Thank you
Yours sincerely,
Louise Staden
UNCLASSIFIED
Dear Ms Staden
Thank you for your enquiry - I acknowledge that a decision on your request is overdue.
Renata is currently absent and we anticipate she will be back in the office on Monday. I will ask Renata to respond to you then regarding the status of the request.
I apologise for the delay.
Yours sincerely
Ian Campbell
Assistant Director, Freedom of Information Section Freedom of Information, Privacy & Records Management Branch Corporate Services Division / Corporate Group Department of Immigration and Border Protection
P: 02 6264 3030; E: [email address]
UNCLASSIFIED
Our references: FA 17/02/00489; ADF2017/20704
Dear Ms Staden
This email refers to your FOI request received on 31 January 2017 seeking
access to:
List of medical conditions that required a referral to the Ministry of the
Commonwealth that were ultimately awarded Visas in year 2015 - 2016. No
patient details are required or details of any medicals undertaken. Just
the name of the condition for each referred applicant that were granted a
189, 190 and 489 visa
The purpose of this email is to advise you, as required under s.24AB of
the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (FOI Act) that I consider a practical
refusal reason exists under s.24AA of the FOI Act in relation to your
request. I have set out my reasons and the actions required by you (to
consult on the scope of your request) in the attached notice.
Consultation period
The FOI Act requires that you respond to this notice before the end of the
consultation period, which is close of business 25 April 2017.
You may consult with me by replying to this email: [1][email address]
Yours Sincerely
Renata Buchanan
Freedom of Information Section
Freedom of Information, Privacy & Records Management Branch
Corporate Services Division | Corportate Group
Department of Immigration and Border Protection
Email: [email address]
UNCLASSIFIED
Important Notice: The content of this email is intended only for use by
the individual or entity to whom it is addressed. If you have received
this email by mistake, please advise the sender and delete the message and
attachments immediately. This email, including attachments, may contain
confidential, sensitive, legally privileged and/or copyright information.
Any review, retransmission, dissemination or other use of this information
by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited.
DIBP respects your privacy and has obligations under the Privacy Act 1988.
Unsolicited commercial emails MUST NOT be sent to the originator of this
email.
References
Visible links
1. mailto:[email address]
Dear FOI,
Thank you for your response.
I appreciate the time it would take to collate such information is extensive but i think it's important to know what conditions resulted in a referral and what outcome that referral had. I'm disappointed that the FOI department do not agree.
I accept your offer of alternative information but only if the top medical conditions are actual cases and not generic.
I look forward to your timely response
Yours sincerely,
Louise Staden
UNCLASSIFIED
Dear Ms Staden
Thank you for revising the scope of your FOI request. The business area will analyse data and provide a list of the top health conditions referred to a MOC resulting in meeting or not meeting the health outcome for the 2015-16 FY for visa subclasses 189,190 and 489.
Thank you for your patience.
Regards
Renata Buchanan
Freedom of Information Section
Freedom of Information, Privacy & Records Management Branch Corporate Services Division | Corportate Group Department of Immigration and Border Protection
Email: [email address]
UNCLASSIFIED
Our references: FA 17/02/00489; ADF2017/20704
Dear Ms Staden
I refer to your FOI request received on 31 January 2017, seeking access to
the following:
The top conditions identified by a Medical Officer of the Commonwealth
(MOC) for the Skilled visas 189, 190 and 489 for the 2015-16 financial
year.
The Department has made a decision on this request. Please see attached
the signed decision letter, decision record and document released under
the FOI Act.
This request has now been closed.
Yours sincerely
Renata Buchanan
Freedom of Information Section
Freedom of Information, Privacy & Records Management Branch
Corporate Services Division | Corporate Group
Department of Immigration and Border Protection
Email: [email address]
UNCLASSIFIED
Important Notice: The content of this email is intended only for use by
the individual or entity to whom it is addressed. If you have received
this email by mistake, please advise the sender and delete the message and
attachments immediately. This email, including attachments, may contain
confidential, sensitive, legally privileged and/or copyright information.
Any review, retransmission, dissemination or other use of this information
by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited.
DIBP respects your privacy and has obligations under the Privacy Act 1988.
Unsolicited commercial emails MUST NOT be sent to the originator of this
email.
Locutus Sum left an annotation ()
I can understand that a person will become frustrated when they do not receive a letter in the time that the person expects. But the law has not been broken. The first thing to know is that it was allowable for the agency to send the decision letter on Monday, 3 April 2017 instead of Saturday, 1 April 2017. As I said in my annotation here (https://www.righttoknow.org.au/request/e... ), s 36(2) ("Calculating time") of the Acts Interpretation Act says that "If: (a) an Act requires or allows a thing to be done; and (b) the last day for doing the thing is a Saturday, a Sunday or a holiday; then the thing may be done on the next day that is not a Saturday, a Sunday or a holiday."
The second thing to know is that a decision has been made to refuse the applicant's request. As I explained in my annotation here (https://www.righttoknow.org.au/request/s... ) there is never an "overdue" decision under the Act. I have copied some of my explanation in the other annotation to here: ... ...
The Freedom of Information Act does not ever call a decision overdue because it does not happen! This is because of the operation of section 15AC of the Act (http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/c.... This section looks at whether a notice of a decision has been received by the applicant, so it is not even relevant if the department actually made a decision. The section says that if the applicant has not received a notice of a decision on a request, then the request is deemed to have been refused and also it is deemed that the notice of the decision was given to the applicant on exactly the same day.
So there is never an overdue FOI decision! If a department forgets to make a decision then section 15AC will make the decision at exactly the time the decision is due. The compensation that an applicant has for a "deemed refusal" decision, instead of a decision made by a real person, is to make an application for review. There is no other method under the Act.
I do not write this to say "Do not write to the agency with a reminder." Very often the FOI officer will apologize and will eventually make a decision but it is all beyond what is covered by the FOI Act.