OFFICIAL

Reference: 2025/024 

Dear Mr Squiggle

Thank you for your email of 3 February 2025 in which you made a request
under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (the FOI Act) to the Department
of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (the Department). 

You set out the terms of the request as follows:

I request the following documents under the FOI Act for any departmental
officials /agency head who currently holds membership to either the Qantas
Chairman's Lounge or Virgin's Beyond lounge.

1. For each of individual, their total number of flights and total
expenditure, by airline, for the most recent available 12 month period.
Please also identify the membership(s) they hold.

2. Any documents that detail any assessments made as to the 'estimated
value' of these memberships (including those made by the individuals, or
the department).

3. Any documents that detail any reasons for accepting (or declining)
invitations to these exclusive airline lounges.

4. Any documents that are requests for advice from these individuals, or
advice given to these individuals, that touch on whether the memberships
are in accordance with applicable policies in relation to conflict of
interest, gifts, etc.

Timeframe for receiving your decision

The 30 day statutory period for processing your request commenced from the
day after the Department received your request, you should therefore
expect a decision from us by 5 March 2025.

The processing period of 30 days may be extended in certain circumstances
and we will write to you separately regarding 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
your requested document, 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 set out your 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:

o any person’s signature;
o the names and contact details of Australian Public Service officers
not in the Senior Executive Service (SES);
o the mobile or direct numbers of SES officers;
o the names and contact details of Ministerial staff at a level below
Chief of Staff.

If you consider the information categorised above is relevant to the terms
of your request please let us know at [3][DPMC request email], otherwise we will
take it that you agree this category of information may be reasonably
regarded as irrelevant and we will delete this information if it appears
in the documents that are otherwise responsive to your request. 

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.

Further information on FOI processing can be found at the website of the
Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at
[4]https://www.oaic.gov.au/freedom-of-infor...

Yours sincerely

Kind regards

Adviser 

FOI Section[]

Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet

p. (02) 6271 5849

Ngunnawal Country, One National Circuit  Barton  ACT  2600  |  PO Box
6500  CANBERRA  ACT  2600
e. [5][email address]  w. [6]pmc.gov.au

[7]cid:image001.jpg@01D78E24.FF2DAFB0[8]cid:image002.jpg@01D78E24.FF2DAFB0

[9]cid:image003.jpg@01D78E24.FF2DAFB0 The
Department
acknowledges
and pays
respect to
the past,
present and
emerging
Elders and
Traditional
Custodians
of Country,
and the
continuation
of cultural,
spiritual
and
educational
practices of
Aboriginal
and Torres
Strait
Islander
peoples.

______________________________________________________________________ 
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
1. https://www.pmc.gov.au/about-us/accounta...
2. mailto:[DPMC request email]
3. mailto:[DPMC request email]
4. https://www.oaic.gov.au/freedom-of-infor...
5. mailto:[email address]
6. https://www.pmc.gov.au/
7. https://twitter.com/pmc_gov_au
8. https://www.linkedin.com/company/departm...

OFFICIAL

Departmental reference: FOI/2025/024

Dear Mr Squiggle

I refer your request of 3 February 2025 under the Freedom of Information
Act 1982 seeking access to:

I request the following documents under the FOI Act for any departmental
officials /agency head who currently holds membership to either the Qantas
Chairman's Lounge or Virgin's Beyond lounge.

1.       For each of individual, their total number of flights and total
expenditure, by airline, for the most recent available 12 month period.
Please also identify the membership(s) they hold.

2.       Any documents that detail any assessments made as to the
'estimated value' of these memberships (including those made by the
individuals, or the department).

3.       Any documents that detail any reasons for accepting (or
declining) invitations to these exclusive airline lounges.

4.       Any documents that are requests for advice from these
individuals, or advice given to these individuals, that touch on whether
the memberships are in accordance with applicable policies in relation to
conflict of interest, gifts, etc.

The current due date for a decision on the requests is 3 March 2025. I am
the member of the FOI Team that has carriage of this matter and I am
seeking an extension in order to keep your FOI request within time. The
Department is committed to processing all requests that it receives and
endeavours to complete those requests within statutory timeframes. 

We have identified documents related to the terms of your request;
however, to ensure all relevant records are captured I am awaiting further
advice from the responsible area within the Department. With regard to
those documents already identified, the work of reviewing records to
identify those that fall within the scope of your request has commenced.
Further work is required to:

·       Ensure all relevant documents have been retrieved

·       Prepare those documents

·       Undertake any consultation, which is likely required with at least
one commonwealth agency

·       Complete the assessment under the FOI Act.

We note that the FOI Act has built-in provisions and operations that
provide for extensions to enable agencies and Minister’s to manage their
FOI requests and keep them within time. The Department would like to work
with applicants in managing the timeframes of its requests. Given this, I
seek your agreement to an extension of 30 days to complete the above work.
We will keep you updated on the progress of this request if circumstances
change.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Kind regards

Adviser

FOI Section[]

Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet

p. (02) 6271 5849

Ngunnawal Country | One National Circuit Barton ACT 2600 | PO Box
6500 CANBERRA ACT 2600
e. [1][email address] w. [2]pmc.gov.au

[3]cid:image003.jpg@01D78E24.FF2DAFB0 The
Department
acknowledges
and pays
respect to
the past,
present and
emerging
Elders and
Traditional
Custodians
of Country,
and the
continuation
of cultural,
spiritual
and
educational
practices of
Aboriginal
and Torres
Strait
Islander
peoples.

______________________________________________________________________ 
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
1. mailto:[email address]
2. https://www.pmc.gov.au/

OFFICIAL

Departmental reference: FOI/2025/024

Dear Mr Squiggle

I refer to your request under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (FOI
Act)  for access to:

I request the following documents under the FOI Act for any departmental
officials /agency head who currently holds membership to either the Qantas
Chairman's Lounge or Virgin's Beyond lounge.

1.      For each of individual, their total number of flights and total
expenditure, by airline, for the most recent available 12 month period.
Please also identify the membership(s) they hold.

2.      Any documents that detail any assessments made as to the
'estimated value' of these memberships (including those made by the
individuals, or the department).

3.      Any documents that detail any reasons for accepting (or declining)
invitations to these exclusive airline lounges.

4.      Any documents that are requests for advice from these individuals,
or advice given to these individuals, that touch on whether the
memberships are in accordance with applicable policies in relation to
conflict of interest, gifts, etc.

Your request covers documents which:

·        contain information concerning the business, commercial or
financial affairs of an organisation, or a person’s business or
professional affairs, and the Department is required to consult with the
person or organisation concerned (under section 27 of the FOI Act) before
making a decision on the release of the document, and

·        contain another individual’s personal information, and the
Department is required to consult with that individual (under section 27A
of the FOI Act) before making a decision on the release of the document

The consultation mechanisms under sections 27 and 27A apply when we
believe the person or organisation concerned may wish to contend that the
requested documents are exempt release may adversely affect their business
or financial affairs or for reasons of personal privacy.

Where a consultation under sections 27 and 27A is entered into, the FOI
Act provides an extension of the processing period by 30 days (section
15(6)) in order to allow the Department time to consult with that
organisation or person. As a result the extended due date of your FOI
request is now 4 April 2025, we will endeavour to finalised the request at
an earlier date if possible.

Kind regards

Adviser

FOI Section[]

Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet

p. (02) 6271 5849

Ngunnawal Country | One National Circuit Barton ACT 2600 | PO Box
6500 CANBERRA ACT 2600
e. [1][email address] w. [2]pmc.gov.au

[3]cid:image003.jpg@01D78E24.FF2DAFB0 The
Department
acknowledges
and pays
respect to
the past,
present and
emerging
Elders and
Traditional
Custodians
of Country,
and the
continuation
of cultural,
spiritual
and
educational
practices of
Aboriginal
and Torres
Strait
Islander
peoples.

______________________________________________________________________ 
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
1. mailto:[email address]
2. https://www.pmc.gov.au/