Your email has been received by the Office of Australian Information
Commissioner.

FOI requests to the OAIC

Please note that this email address is only used for making requests to
obtain access to a document held by the OAIC pursuant to the Freedom of
Information Act 1982 (Cth) (FOI Act). We will only action and respond to
emails making FOI requests to the OAIC. For information on how to make an
FOI request to the OAIC, and to ensure that your request complies with the
requirements of the FOI Act, please refer to the FOI page on the OAIC’s
website at:
[1]https://www.oaic.gov.au/about-us/access-...
Once your request has been assessed by the OAIC, and registered on our
system, a separate acknowledgement email will be sent to you with a
reference number.

The OAIC does not hold all documents of other Commonwealth government
agencies, other state government agencies, or private organisations.

Accordingly:

1)      if you are seeking to access documents of a particular
Commonwealth agency, you will need to make your request directly to the
relevant agency. For example, if you are requesting a copy of your visa
records, please make an FOI request and send it to the Department of Home
Affairs.

2)      if you are seeking to access documents of a state or local
government agency, as each Australian state and territory also have
separate FOI legislation that governs information held by state government
agencies, please contact the relevant agency as to how to make an
application to access the documents. For example, if you are seeking
access to police report from NSW Police Force, it is governed by the
Government Information (Public Access) Act 2009 (NSW) (GIPA Act), and you
will need to contact NSW police to find out how to make a GIPA application
for the police report.

3)      if you are seeking to access documents of a private organization,
which the FOI Act does not apply to, please contact the organization
directly to find out how to access the documents you are seeking. For
example, if you are seeking to access to hospital records or your medical
centre records, please contact these organisations directly. 

Enquiries and other matters

If your email relates to any of the following, please utilise our online
forms instead, which are available at
[2]https://www.oaic.gov.au/about-us/contact...

-               Enquiry

-               Privacy  Complaint

-               Notifiable Data Breach

-               Consumer Data Right Complaint

-               FOI Complaint

-               Freedom of Information Review

-               Agency FOI Extension of Time Requests

-               Speech requests.

Notice:

The information contained in this email message and any attached files may
be confidential information, and may also be the subject of legal
professional privilege. If you are not the intended recipient any use,
disclosure or copying of this email is unauthorised. If you received this
email in error, please notify the sender by contacting the department's
switchboard on 1300 488 064 during business hours (8:30am - 5pm Canberra
time) and delete all copies of this transmission together with any
attachments.

References

Visible links
1. https://www.oaic.gov.au/about-us/access-...
2. https://www.oaic.gov.au/about-us/contact...

Our reference: FOIREQ23/00170

Dear Thomas,

Freedom of Information request

I refer to your request for access to documents made under the Freedom of
Information Act 1982 (Cth) (FOI Act).

Your FOI request was received by the Office of the Australian Information
Commissioner (OAIC) on 29 August 2023. This means that a decision on your
FOI request is currently due on 28 September 2023.

Scope of your request

Your FOI request was made in the following terms:

I seek copies of all documents recording exchanges between the OAIC and
the Attorney General or his office over the period from 7:30am on 21
August to 6:00pm on 29 August (inclusive) which relate to the Senate Legal
and Constitutional Affairs References Committee inquiry into the operation
of the FOI system.

I am particularly interested in text messages (such as messages sent via
the Signal messenger app, SMS or WhatsApp) but would also like to see any
records of meetings or email exchanges.

I note that you have requested documents until 6.00pm on 29 August 2023
and your request was received at 3.34pm on 29 August 2023.  The FOI
Guidelines provide:

2.34         The right of access applies to documents that exist at the
time the FOI request was made. An applicant cannot insist that their
request cover documents created after the request is received. However,
the agency or minister could consider whether to include documents that
were created after the request was received. This could be more
administratively efficient because the applicant might otherwise submit a
new request for the later documents.

Although the scope of your request includes documents that may have been
created after your request has been received, we will include within the
scope of your request all relevant documents until 6.00pm on 29 August
2023. 

In order to process your request as efficiently as possible, I will
exclude duplicates and early parts of email streams that are captured in
later email streams from the scope of this request, unless you advise me
otherwise.

We will not identify you as the FOI applicant during any consultation
process, unless we seek your permission. However, documents that are
within the scope of your request that we may need to consult third parties
about may contain your personal information.

Timeframes for dealing with your request

Section 15 of the FOI Act requires the OAIC to process your request no
later than 30 days after the day we receive it. However, section 15(6) of
the FOI Act allows us a further 30 days in situations where we need to
consult with third parties about certain information, such as business
documents or documents affecting their personal privacy.

The current decision due date for your request is 28 September 2023. We
will advise you if this timeframe is otherwise extended.

Disclosure Log

Documents released under the FOI Act may be published online on our
disclosure log, unless they contain personal or business information that
would be unreasonable to publish.

If you would like to discuss your FOI request, please contact me on my
contact details set out below.

Yours sincerely

[1][IMG]   Emily Elliott (she/her)

Senior Lawyer

Office of the Australian Information Commissioner

Sydney | GPO Box 5288 Sydney NSW 2001

P +61 2 9942 0465  E [2][OAIC request email]  
 
The OAIC acknowledges Traditional Custodians of Country across
Australia and their continuing connection to land, waters and
communities. We pay our respect to First Nations people,
cultures and Elders past and present.  

[3]Subscribe to Information Matters

Notice:

The information contained in this email message and any attached files may
be confidential information, and may also be the subject of legal
professional privilege. If you are not the intended recipient any use,
disclosure or copying of this email is unauthorised. If you received this
email in error, please notify the sender by contacting the department's
switchboard on 1300 488 064 during business hours (8:30am - 5pm Canberra
time) and delete all copies of this transmission together with any
attachments.

References

Visible links
1. https://www.oaic.gov.au/
2. mailto:[OAIC request email]
3. https://www.oaic.gov.au/engage-with-us/n...

Dear Thomas,

Please see attached decision on behalf of the delegate.

Kind Regards,

Laura

[1][IMG]   Laura Moffat

Paralegal

Office of the Australian Information Commissioner

Sydney | GPO Box 5288 Sydney NSW 2001

E [2][OAIC request email]
 
The OAIC acknowledges Traditional Custodians of Country across
Australia and their continuing connection to land, waters and
communities. We pay our respect to First Nations people,
cultures and Elders past and present.  

[3]Subscribe to Information Matters

Notice:

The information contained in this email message and any attached files may
be confidential information, and may also be the subject of legal
professional privilege. If you are not the intended recipient any use,
disclosure or copying of this email is unauthorised. If you received this
email in error, please notify the sender by contacting the department's
switchboard on 1300 488 064 during business hours (8:30am - 5pm Canberra
time) and delete all copies of this transmission together with any
attachments.

References

Visible links
1. https://www.oaic.gov.au/
2. mailto:[OAIC request email]
3. https://www.oaic.gov.au/engage-with-us/n...