OFFICIAL
Freedom of Information (FOI) request
Practical Refusal Consultation Notice
Reference: FOI/2024/067
Mr Ben Fairless
By email:
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxx.xxx.xx
Dear Mr Fairless
I refer to your request to the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (the Department), under
the
Freedom of Information Act 1982 (the FOI Act), received on 4 April 2025.
You set out your request in the fol owing terms:
Background
As I’m sure you know, the government enters caretaker mode when the election is called.
When this happens, the department does a number of things including putting things on
social media, updating websites and the like.
Unfortunately, this year somebody was a bit overzealous and announced the
government was operating in caretaker mode before the election had been cal ed!
Request
I’m looking for the following documents if possible:
1. All documents including plans, templates, and tasks that are performed by the
department in the months leading up to when an election is expected to be called.
2. A copy of any internal communications related to the unintentional tweet, including
the content of communications via messaging apps.
Please feel free to consult me informally about any reductions you feel might make this
request easier to process. If possible, please consider releasing these documents
administratively. If you’re not able to do this please consider this a formal FOI request.
The Department contacted you on 9 and 23 April 2025 proposing alternative terms and seeking your
agreement to revise your request. The Department has not received a response.
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Notice of practical refusal reason
Section 24(1) of the FOI Act provides that a request to an agency may be refused if the decision maker
is satisfied that a practical refusal reason exists in relation to that request.
I write to advise you that subject to possible further revision and clarification which would narrow the
request, the Department considers that the work involved in processing the request in its current form
would substantial y and unreasonably divert the resources of the Department from its other
operations.
This constitutes a ‘practical refusal reason’ under section 24AA of the FOI Act. On this basis, the
decision maker for the request intends to refuse access to the documents you have requested.
However, before a final decision to refuse the request can be made, you have an opportunity to revise
your request. This is called a ‘request consultation process’ as set out in section 24AB of the FOI Act.
You have 14 days to respond to this notice, as set out below. The 14 days commences the day after
you receive this letter.
Reasons for intention to refuse your request
In deciding if a practical refusal reason exists, an agency must have regard to the resources required
to perform the fol owing activities specified in section 24AA(2) of the FOI Act:
• identifying, locating or col ating documents within the filing system of the agency;
• examining the documents;
• deciding whether to grant, refuse or defer access;
• consulting with other parties;
• redacting exempt material from the documents;
• making copies of documents;
• notifying an interim or final decision to the applicant.
Fol owing initial searches for documents potential y relevant to your request 3,100 Outlook items have
been returned for the Department’s Communications Branch alone. Further steps are needed to asses
these documents for relevance. We conservatively estimate that this process would take one officer at
least 2 minutes per Outlook item. It is therefore estimated to take one officer 100 hours to identify
documents from one system of the Department and retrieve them for further examination.
Other areas within the Department would also potential y hold documents relevant to your request,
and these records are expected to be stored in other systems and record repositories for which the
Department would need to undertake further searches. In light of this we currently do not have
figures available as to the actual number of documents held by the Department that fal within your
broad request.
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Ordinary hours of work for ful -time employees in the Department are 38 hours per week. Having
regard to the above estimate of time, this means it would take one officer almost three weeks to
complete the identification and retrieval of records from one system. Additional work includes
considering whether there are any sensitivities with disclosing the documents, determining whether
there are consultation requirements, and preparing the decision.
Other matters may be relevant in deciding if a practical refusal reason exists such as the staffing
resources available to an agency for FOI processing, whether the processing can only be undertaken
by one or more specialist officers in an agency who have competing responsibilities, the impact that
processing may have on other work in an agency including FOI processing, and whether there is a
significant public interest in the documents requested.
1
The Department acknowledges that the processing of requests for access to documents is a legitimate
part of each agency’s functions, and that FOI requests may require the real ocation of resources within
an agency in some circumstances. However, in this case, the Department is not able to reasonably
divert its resources from its other operations to assist in processing this request. In reaching this view,
the Department has had regard to the public interest in providing access to information but considers
that this is outweighed by the competing public interest in the ability of the Department to undertake
its ordinary functions without substantial impairment, in particular the processing of other FOI
requests.
For the reasons given above, the decision maker considers that processing your request in its current
form would create a substantial and unreasonable diversion of the Department’s resources from its
other operations.
Request consultation process
You now have an opportunity to revise your request to enable it to proceed. Revising your request
can mean narrowing the scope of the request to make it more manageable or explaining in more
detail the specific documents you wish to access. It is open to you to adopt the scope suggested in
our emails of 9 and 23 April 2025:
1. All documents relating to the preparation of social media content for caretaker -
including plans, templates, and tasks that are performed by the department in
the months leading up to when an election is expected to be called.
2. A copy of any internal communications related to the unintentional tweet,
including the content of communications via messaging apps – excluding media
reporting.
1 3.117 of the FOI Guidelines
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Alternatively, you may wish to consider revising your request in one or more of the fol owing ways:
• reducing the parts of your request
• providing further specifics of what information and documents you are seeking
• identifying the responsible area of the Department which you believe may hold relevant
records, you can view the Department’s structure at:
https://www.pmc.gov.au/who-we-are/the-
department
• alternatively you could specify what documents you are not interested in accessing, for
example:
o agreeing to remove duplicates, and/or
o excluding any automated email messages
for example out of office messages
Before the end of the consultation period, you must do one of the fol owing, in writing:
• withdraw your request;
• make a revised request; or
• tell us that you do not wish to revise your request.
Action required
Section 24AB of the FOI Act provides that before the end of the consultation period you must do one
of the fol owing, in writing, within the next 14 days (by 19 May 2025):
a. Withdraw the request;
b. Make a revised request;
c. Indicated that you do not wish to revise the request.
The consultation period runs for 14 days and starts on the day after you receive this notice. During this
time, you may wish to seek assistance to revise your request from the contact person listed below.
If you do not do one of the above during the consultation period, your request wil be taken to have
been withdrawn
2.
No guarantee of access
Please be aware that even if you revise your FOI request to enable it to be processed, there is stil no
guarantee that documents wil ultimately be released. That is a matter for the decision maker to
decide in the usual manner after examining the relevant documents. The issue we are addressing at
the moment is whether your FOI request can be processed – not what the eventual outcome may be
if it is processed.
2 section 24AB(7) of the FOI Act
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Calculating of the 30 day processing period
Please note that the time taken to consult with you regarding the scope of your FOI request, under
this request consultation notice, is not taken into account for the purposes of calculating the 30 day
period
3.
Contact officer
Should you wish to discuss any aspect of your request, please contact the Department either by email
a
t xxx@xxx.xxx.xx or by phone 02 6271 5849, quoting reference number FOI/2025/067.
The contact officer for your request is Ben and he can be reached using the above contact details.
Yours sincerely
Janelle
Director
FOI and Privacy Section
5 May 2025
3 s 24AB(8) of the FOI Act
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Document Outline
