Seeking legal instrument excluding department's duty to accord procedural fairness
Dear PM&C,
Please accept this request for information under the FOI Act. I am happy to receive the information under administrative access arrangements.
Please provide the legal instrument that excludes your department from according procedural fairness in administration decision-making related to the Humanitarian Overseas Service Medal.
I understand the duty may be excluded by legislation. The HOSM letters patent, regulations and declaration do not prescribe such exclusions.
The Australian High Court opines “ in the absence of a clear, contrary legislative intention administrative decision-makers must accord procedural fairness to those affected by their decisions."
Your department's Statement of Ministerial Standards "Ministers must be able to demonstrate that they have taken all reasonable steps to observe relevant standards of procedural fairness and good decision making application to decision made by them".
Thank you for your time.
Yours faithfully,
Trav S
OFFICIAL
FOI/2021/131
Dear Trav S
Thank you for your email dated 1 August 2021, received by the Department
of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (the Department), in which you made a
request to the Department under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (the
FOI Act) in the following terms:
Please accept this request for information under the FOI Act. I am happy
to receive the information under administrative access arrangements.
Please provide the legal instrument that excludes your department from
according procedural fairness in administration decision-making related to
the Humanitarian Overseas Service Medal.
I understand the duty may be excluded by legislation. The HOSM letters
patent, regulations and declaration do not prescribe such exclusions.
The Australian High Court opines “ in the absence of a clear, contrary
legislative intention administrative decision-makers must accord
procedural fairness to those affected by their decisions."
Your department's Statement of Ministerial Standards "Ministers must be
able to demonstrate that they have taken all reasonable steps to observe
relevant standards of procedural fairness and good decision making
application to decision made by them".
Timeframe for receiving your decision
We received your request on 1 August 2021 and the 30 day statutory period
for processing your request commenced from the day after that date. You
should therefore expect a decision from us by 31 August 2021. The period
of 30 days may be extended in certain circumstances. We will advise you if
there is any extension of time.
Charges
Agencies may decide that an applicant is liable to pay a charge in respect
of a request for access to documents. If the Department decides that you
are liable to pay a charge, we will send you a preliminary assessment of
the charge as soon as possible.
Publication of documents
Please note that information released under the FOI Act may later be
published online on our disclosure log at
[1]https://www.pmc.gov.au/government/depart...,
subject to certain exceptions. If you think you might wish to raise any
objections to the publication of any of the information which may be
released to you please contact us by email at [2][DPMC request email]. If you do
wish to object to the publication of information, you would need to
provide supporting reasons.
Exclusion of officers’ names and contact details
For documents that fall within scope of the request, it is the
Department’s policy to withhold:
• any person’s signature;
• the names and contact details of Australian Public Service
officers not in the Senior Executive Service (SES);
• the mobile or direct numbers of SES officers;
• the names and contact details of Ministerial staff at a
level below Chief of Staff.
The names and other details of SES officers will not be withheld unless
there is some reason for that information to be exempt from release. If
you require signatures, the names and contact details of non-SES officers
or Ministerial staff below the level of Chief of Staff, or the mobile or
direct numbers of SES officers please let us know at [3][DPMC request email] so
the decision-maker may consider; otherwise we will take it that you agree
to that information being excluded from the scope of your request (that
is, the information will be treated as irrelevant and redacted from any
documents for release).
We will write again when the Department has more information. Further
information on FOI processing can be found at the website of the Office of
the Australian Information Commissioner
[4]https://www.oaic.gov.au/freedom-of-infor....
Yours sincerely
FOI Adviser
FOI and Privacy Section| Legal Policy Branch
Government Division | Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet
[5]http://www.dcducks.com/wp-content/themes...
6271 5849 |
[6]http://cdn.mysitemyway.com/icons-waterma... request email]
|
[8]https://www.musicianswithoutborders.org/...
One National Circuit Barton ACT 2600 | PO Box 6500 CANBERRA ACT 2600
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References
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3. mailto:[DPMC request email]
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){kind=link}
OFFICIAL
FOI/2021/131
Dear Trav S
Please find attached the decision regarding your request under the Freedom
of Information Act 1982.
Yours sincerely
FOI Adviser
FOI and Privacy Section| Legal Policy Branch
Government Division | Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet
[1]http://www.dcducks.com/wp-content/themes...
6271 5849 |
[2]http://cdn.mysitemyway.com/icons-waterma... request email]
|
[4]https://www.musicianswithoutborders.org/...
One National Circuit Barton ACT 2600 | PO Box 6500 CANBERRA ACT 2600
[6]cid:image001.jpg@01D30607.6CF4DA00[7]cid:image002.jpg@01D30607.6CF4DA00[8]cid:image003.jpg@01D30607.6CF4DA00 [9]cid:image004.jpg@01D30607.6CF4DA00
[10]cid:image005.jpg@01D30607.6CF4DA00
______________________________________________________________________
IMPORTANT: This message, and any attachments to it, contains information
that is confidential and may also be the subject of legal professional or
other privilege. If you are not the intended recipient of this message,
you
must not review, copy, disseminate or disclose its contents to any other
party or take action in reliance of any material contained within it. If
you
have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately
by
return email informing them of the mistake and delete all copies of the
message from your computer system.
______________________________________________________________________
References
Visible links
3. mailto:[DPMC request email]
5. http://www.pmc.gov.au/
6. https://twitter.com/pmc_gov_au
7. https://www.linkedin.com/company/departm...
8. https://twitter.com/indigenous_gov
9. https://www.facebook.com/indigenous.gov....
Thank you for your email confirming there is no legal instrument that excludes your department from according procedural fairness in administration decision-making relating to the Humanitarian Overseas Service Medal. Yours sincerely, Trav S