Tuesday, January 03, 2012

FOI Application of 3 January 2012 for Documents Exempted Under Repealed Section of the FOI Act

Dear Mr Anagnostis,

Thanks you for sending the FOI documents requested.

Based on previous communications, my impression was that Mr Anderson had decided to release all documents in the list, and his only concern was application fee and late, the processing fee. Therefore, when you mentioned Mr Anderson’s decision in your email of 3 October 2011, I misunderstood it as Mr Anderson’s previous decision. Now I find many documents on the list are exempted from releasing under section 36 of the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (the FOI Act). My understanding is that s. 36 of the FOI Act has been repealed.

In her decision of 17 February 2011 on waiving the processing charges, Ms Lynch took practical approach by considering the changes of the FOI Act regarding the requests made after 1 November 2010. Mr Anderson might have not read Ms Lynch’s decision of 17 February 2011 on reviewing his decision of 10 December 2010 as he has not adapted Ms Lynch’s method in relation to making the decision on FOI requests made before 1 November 2010.

Even though I have the right to apply for reviewing Mr Anderson’s decision of 30 September 2011, I take practical approach and make a new request under the FOI Act to access all the documents which were exempted.

A. the documents exempted by Mr Anderson under the repealed s. 36 of the FOI Act.

1. Email of 17/07/2009 from Mr MacDowell, SA, LPB to Mr Jose, PMO, confirming deletion of one paragraph of a response letter to Mr He, with additional email traffic attached.

2. Email of 15/07/2009 from Mr Jose, SA, PMO to Mr MacDowell, SA, LPB agreeing to transfer Mr He’s request to PM&C, with additional email traffic attached.

3. Email of 15/07/2009 from Mr MacDowell, SA, LPB to Mr Jose, SA, PMO seeking transfer of the request to PM&C, with additional email traffic attached.

4. Email of 10/01/2008 from Mr Gavin Ryan, Office of Senator Gavin Marshall, to Ms Sarah Adams regarding Mr He.

5. Brief of 22/01/2008 from Mr Peter Cully, AS, Workplace Relation Legal Group, DEEWR, to Ms Sarah Adams, SA, PMO.

B. the documents exempted by Mr Anderson under s. 22 of the FOI Act, which requests the applicant’s agreement, whereas I have not given any agreement

6. Email of 07/10/2008 from Mr Broad, LPB, to Mr Corbett, regarding unfair dismissal correspondence in relation to Mr He, with additional email traffic.

7. Email of 13/10/2008 from Mr Corbett to Mr Broad.

8. Email of 13/10/2008 from Mr Corbett to Mr Broad.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Enclosure:

1. Mr Alex Anderson’s decision of 30 September 2011 on exempted documents
2. The attachment to Mr Anderson’s decision of 30 September 2011