OFFICIAL
Freedom of Information (FOI) request
Notice of Decision
Reference: FOI/2025/006
Glenn Hamiltonshire
By email:
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxx.xxx.xx
Dear Mr Hamiltonshire,
I refer to your request dated 14 January 2025 to the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet,
under the
Freedom of Information Act 1982 (the FOI Act).
The purpose of this letter is to provide you with a decision on your request for access under the
FOI Act.
Scope of request
You set out your request in the fol owing terms:
On 1 December 2022, the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet released a
document titled "Australian red ensign fact sheet", accessible here:
https://www.pmc.gov.au/resources/australian-red-ensign-fact-sheet
I request access to all correspondence or records of correspondence relating to
proposing, drafting, and publishing of the red ensign fact sheet.
For the avoidance of doubt, I agree to remove any personal details of APS staff at a non-
SES level from this request.
Request decided out of time
A decision on your request was due 13 February 2025. Unfortunately the Department was unable to
complete the processing of your request by the due date. In these circumstances the Department
fol ows the Guidelines issued by the Information Commissioner under section 93A of the FOI Act
(the Guidelines) which states:
Postal Address: PO Box 6500, CANBERRA ACT 2600
Telephone: +61 2 6271 5849 Fax: +61 2 6271 5776 www.pmc.gov.au ABN: 18 108 001 191
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Where an access refusal decision is deemed to have been made before a substantive
decision is made, the agency or minister continues to have an obligation to provide a
statement of reasons on the FOI request.1
Authorised decision-maker
I am authorised to make this decision in accordance with arrangements approved by the
Department’s Secretary under section 23 of the FOI Act.
Material taken into account
In reaching my decision I referred to the fol owing:
• the terms of your request
• the documents relevant to your request
• the FOI Act
• the Guidelines issued by the Information Commission
er2 (the Guidelines)
Documents in scope of request
The Department has identified 7 documents that fal within the scope of your request.
These documents are set out in the Schedule of Documents at Attachment A.
Decision
I have decided to grant access in part, with exempt and irrelevant material deleted, on grounds the
documents contain information exempt under section 47E (Certain operation of agencies).
Reason for decision
My findings of fact and reasons for deciding that certain information is exempt or irrelevant is set out
below.
1.
Section 47E – Public interest conditional exemption – Certain operation of agencies
Section 47E provides:
A document is conditionally exempt if its disclosure under this Act would, or could
reasonably be expected to do any of the following:
a) prejudice the effectiveness of procedures or methods for the conduct of tests,
examinations or audits by an agency;
1 Paragraph 3.161 of the Guidelines
2 s 93A of the FOI Act
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b) prejudice the attainment of the objects of particular tests, examinations or
audits conducted or to be conducted by an agency;
c) have a substantial adverse effect on the management or assessment of
personnel by the Commonwealth or by an agency;
d) have a substantial adverse effect on the proper and efficient conduct of the
operations of an agency.
Documents 1, 3-7 contain the internal email accounts of the Department. The Guidelines explain that a
decision maker is required to assess whether ‘the predicted effect needs to be reasonably expected to
occur.’
3
The release of internal email addresses would reasonably be expected to result in non-official
communications or public inquiries via these channels, effectively bypassing established channels for
members of the public to contact and make enquiries to th
e Department.4
These centralised contact measures have been established to ensure that individual units within the
Department are able to efficiently undertake their day to day operations. Disclosure of these contact
details would result in unnecessary and wasteful duplication of process and would place additional
pressures on the relevant branch of the Department which is not resourced to triage and manage
direct contact and inquiries from members of the public.
I am satisfied that the disclosure of this information could reasonably be expected to have a
substantial adverse effect on the proper and efficient conduct of the operations of the Department
and that the parts of the document containing this material are conditional y exempt in part under
section 47E(d) of the FOI Act.
2.
Public interest
The FOI Act provides that a conditionally exempt document must nevertheless be disclosed unless its
disclosure would, on balance, be contrary to the public interest
5. In determining whether its disclosure
would be contrary to the public interest, the FOI Act requires a decision-maker to balance the public
interest factors.
As I have decided that parts of the documents are conditional y exempt, I am now required to
consider the public interest factors, in doing so I have not considered the irrelevant factors as set out
in section 11B(4) of the FOI Act.
In applying the public interest, I have noted the objects of the FOI Act
6 and the factors favouring
access as listed in section 11B(3) of the FOI Act. Having regard to the material before me and the
circumstances of the documents found to be conditionally exempt I am satisfied of the fol owing:
3 Paragraph 6.92 of the Guidelines
4
https://www.pmc.gov.au/contact-us
5 section 11A(5)) of the FOI Act
6 section 3 of the FOI Act
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• access would promote the objects of the FOI Act
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• the subject matter within the conditional y exempt documents does not seem to have the
character of public importance, rather the matter has very limited scope and may only be of
interest to a narrow section of the public
• the subject matter within the conditional y exempt documents does not offer any insights into
public expenditure
• I am satisfied that your personal information is not contained within the conditional y exempt
documents and therefore s 11B(3)(d) is not a relevant factor to favour access
The FOI Act does not set out any public interest factors against disclosure and require that agencies
are to have regard to the Guidelines to work out if disclosure would, on balance, be contrary to the
public interest
8. The Guidelines contain a non-exhaustive list of factors that, depending on the
circumstances of the documents found to be conditional y exempt, may weigh against disclosure.
I have decided the disclosure of the conditional y exempt information is against the public interest as
it would disclose the internal operational email addresses of the Department. This information would
not offer additional insight over the materials or al ow greater scrutiny of public expenditure but
would undermine the existing channels by which members of the public can contact the Department
or agency, leading to unnecessary time and resources being spent on responding to inquiries from
the public. This increases pressure on the Department and agency and undermine their effectiveness
in carrying out their functions.
After careful consideration of al relevant factors, I have decided that, on balance, the factors against
disclosure outweigh those favouring disclosure. Accordingly, I am of the view that disclosure of the
conditional y exempt material within the requested documents would be contrary to the public
interest.
3.
Deletion of irrelevant matter
Section 22 of the FOI Act authorises the Department to give access to an edited copy of a document
if giving access to a document would disclose information that would be reasonably regarded as
irrelevant to the request, and it is possible for the Department to prepare an edited copy, modified by
deletions, ensuring that the edited copy would not disclose any information that would reasonably be
regarded as irrelevant to the request.
On 15 January 2025, the Department advised you of its policy to exclude the personal and direct
contact details of officers not in the Senior Executive Service (SES) and any Ministerial staff, as well as
any person’s signature, and the mobile or direct numbers of SES officers, which are contained in
documents that fal within the terms of an FOI request. This category of information is identified as
irrelevant and documents can be modified by the Department to delete the irrelevant material.
7 section 11B(3)(a) of the FOI Act
8 section 11B(5) of the FOI Act
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Additional y, parts of the documents contain other material that fal s outside the scope of your FOI
request. I consider this information to be irrelevant to your FOI request and has been deleted from
the documents.
I am satisfied that parts of the documents are irrelevant under section 22(1)(a)(i ) of the FOI Act. The
remaining parts of the documents have been released to you as they are relevant to your request.
Review rights
If you disagree with my decision, you may apply for Information Commissioner review of the decision.
Information Commissioner review
Under section 54L of the FOI Act, you may apply to the Australian Information Commissioner to
review my decision. An application for review by the Information Commissioner must be made in
writing within 60 days after the date of this letter. You can apply using the
OAIC Web Form.9
FOI Complaints
If you are unhappy with the way we have handled your FOI request, please let us know what we could
have done better. We may be able to rectify the problem. If you are not satisfied with our response,
you can make a complaint to the Australian Information Commissioner. A complaint to the
Information Commissioner must be made in writing. You can make a complaint using the
OAIC Web Form.10
If you wish to discuss any aspect of your requests, you can contact the FOI Section by email at
xxx@xxx.xxx.xx.
Yours sincerely,
David Belgrove
Assistant Secretary
Parliamentary and Government Branch
Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet
9 April 2025
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https://webform.oaic.gov.au/prod?entitytype=ICReview&layoutcode=ICReviewWF
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https://webform.oaic.gov.au/prod?entitytype=Complaint&layoutcode=FOIComplaintWF
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