LEX 9322 s24 1 b Refusal Letter Foifoi Mcgee 1.pdf

FOI References: LEX 9207, 9269, 9295, 9321, 9322, 9326, 9346,
9358, 9366, 9368, 9373, 9419 and 9428
File No: 23/27688
November 2023
Foifoi Mcgee
Right to Know

By email: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxx.xxx.xx

Dear Foifoi Mcgee

Freedom of Information Request – Refusal under section 24(1)(b) of the FOI Act

I refer to your request dated 21 October 2023 (LEX 9322) in which you sought access under
the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (FOI Act) to:

"On the 19th October 2023, it was reported by news.com.au that Foreign Minister
Penny Wong said "Our current assessment is that Israel is not responsible for the
explosion in a hospital in Gaza.". .

INFORMATION I AM SEEKING:

1. I am seeking all documents, including but not limited to investigation reports,
other reports, meeting minutes, correspondence, records of conversation & file notes
held by the Department of Foreign Affairs that were used by the Foreign Minister in
making the assessment

2. I also require all the draft versions of all these documents."

On 14 November 2023 I notified you of my intention under section 24AB(2) of the FOI Act to
refuse to process your FOI request on the grounds that your request would constitute a
substantial and unreasonable diversion of the department’s resources.

That same day I also notified you that your request had been combined with 12 other
requests and would be treated as a single request (the request). Under section 24(2)(b) of
the FOI Act, I was satisfied that all 13 requests related to documents, the subject matter of
which is substantial y the same, being the Hamas-Israel Conflict.

R G Casey Building John McEwen Cres Barton 0221
DFAT.GOV.AU
T +61 2 6261 1111
@DFAT

That same day you wrote to the department and revised the scope of your part of the
request to:

“1. I only need the documents requested from 17th October 2023 - 19th October
2023

2. I only require those documents about the Al- Ahli Arab Hospital bombing that
occurred on the 17th October 2023. I do not require documents about any other
hospital bombing.”

Each applicant was consulted separately on the request and had fourteen days from the
date of receipt of the consultation notice to:
  (a) withdraw their part of the request,
(b) revise the scope of their part of the request, or
(c)  notify the department that they did not wish to revise the scope of their part of the
request.

Decision

I have considered the terms of your revised request, along with the terms of the other
revised requests. I am satisfied that the practical refusal reason still exists, and that
processing the request would require a substantial and unreasonable diversion of the
department's resources.

I am therefore notifying you of my decision to refuse the request, in accordance with
section 24(1)(b) of the FOI Act. I have reached this decision based on the complexity and
voluminous nature of the request.

In refusing the request, I have considered how the department could proceed to process the
request, and the time and resources that would be involved in doing so.

Relevantly to the revised scope of your part of the request, I have also consulted colleagues
in the Business Solutions Branch (BSB) and Cyber Security and Networks Branch (CRB) who
have assisted in estimating resource demands of your part of the request. Searches for
potential y relevant documents have been undertaken by BSB and CRB.

BSB were engaged to undertake searches for diplomatic cables and were provided with the
following parameters:

•  a date range of 17 October 2023 to 19 October 2023, and

•  key word search terms of:
  o  “Al- Ahli Arab Hospital”
o  “Hospital explosion”/”hospital bombing”
o  “Al-Ahli” and “Hospital”.

Searches completed by BSB identified 12 items within the search parameters.

Additionally, CRB were engaged to undertake department wide searches for emails and
were provided with the following search parameters:
  •  a date range of 17 October 2023 to 19 October 2023, and

•  key word search terms of:

o  "Al-Ahli Arab Hospital"
o  "Hospital explosion"
o  "hospital bombing"
o  "Al-Ahli" AND "Hospital".

Searches completed by CRB identified 37,939 items within the search parameters.

A manual review of each document would be required to determine whether the
documents are within the scope of your request, and whether each document contains
material that would be exempt from release.

I am satisfied that even if your request was not combined with the 12 other requests, your
request would stil  constitute a substantial and unreasonable diversion of the department’s
resources and refuse your request under section 24(1)(b) of the FOI Act.

Note that, even if a manual review of each document was undertaken, the department
would not be able to identify documents that were used by the Foreign Minister. Only
documents that were provided to the Foreign Minister.

Review

This decision is subject to review. Your review rights are set out in the Attachment for your
reference.

Alternatively, you may wish to lodge a fresh FOI request, further revising the scope of your
request.

We trust this information assists.

Yours sincerely

Brooke King

Brooke King
A/g Director
Freedom of Information Section

Attachment
Your review rights

Internal review

You may apply for internal review of the decision (s54 of the FOI Act). The internal review
application must be made within 30 days of receipt of this letter.

Where possible, please attach reasons why you believe review of the decision is necessary.
The internal review will be carried out by another officer within 30 days.

Any request for internal review should be directed via email to xxx@xxxx.xxx.xx or
addressed to:

Freedom of Information Section
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
R G Casey Building
John McEwen Crescent
Barton ACT  0221
Australia

Australian Information Commissioner

You may apply within 60 days of receipt of this letter to the Australian Information
Commissioner to review my decision (s54L of the FOI Act). You may also make a complaint
to the Australian Information Commissioner about the Department’s actions in relation to
this decision (s70 of the FOI Act).

Making such a complaint about the way the Department has handled your FOI request is a
separate process to seeking review of my decision.

Further information on applying for an Australian Information Commissioner review is
available at: https://www.oaic.gov.au/freedom-of-information/foi-review-process

Further information about how to make a complaint is available at:
http://www.oaic.gov.au/freedom-of-information/foi-complaints