OFFICIAL

Office of General Counsel

GPO Box 367
CANBERRA CITY   ACT   2601
Meek Haider

www.airservicesaustralia.com
By email: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxx.xxx.xx
ABN 59 698 720 886

Dear Mr Haider

FOI 25-34 - Decision on Access

I refer to the request made under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (Cth) (FOI Act) to
Airservices Australia (Airservices) on 8 May 2025 (the request). It seeks access to:
  Any radar data, air traffic control recordings, or flight logs recorded over the Stanhope Gardens /
Western Sydney region on the evening of May 10, 2013, specifically between 10:00 PM and
11:00 PM.

I am particularly interested in any unidentified aerial phenomena, radar contacts with no
associated flight plan, or anomalous activity logged by air traffic control during that time.

I am authorised under section 23 of the FOI Act and the Airservices Instrument of Delegation and
Authorisation to make decisions on primary requests under the FOI Act.

Decision

Access refused

I have decided to refuse access to the documents sought by the request as on the basis they do
not exist or cannot be found (s 24A(1) of the FOI Act). The reason for my decision is as follows:

Section 24A – document does not exist or cannot be found

Section 24A of the FOI Act requires an agency to take ‘all reasonable steps’ to find a requested
document before being satisfied that the document cannot be found or does not exist.

We undertook the following steps to locate any documents that are subject to the scope of the
request:
  •  Liaised with the Safety Liaison (SL) team and the Technical Operations Centre (TOC) on
whether they hold records that would satisfy the scope of the request.
•  SL and TOC both confirmed that historical operational data archives do not go as far back
as the scope of the request (i.e. 2013).
•  This accords with Airservices’ Records Authority that sets out the baseline retention period
for this kind of data/record as being 90 days.

We emailed you on 3 June 2025 noting the above and gave you the opportunity to provide us with
any additional information that may assist us to undertake further searches.

You did not reply to this email and therefore, based on the above reasoning, I am satisfied that
we’ve taken reasonable steps and that no other documents within scope of your request exist or
can be located.

OFFICIAL

Review rights and complaints

Information about your rights of review and how you can make a complaint about the handling of
your request is at Attachment A.

Contact

If you wish to discuss my decision, please contact me at xxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx.

Yours sincerely

BOURG Digitally signed by

BOURGET_MR
ET_MR Date: 2025.06.10
15:35:56 +10'00'

Marcus Bourget
Authorised FOI Decision Maker

10 June 2025

Page 2

OFFICIAL
ATTACHMENT A

INFORMATION ON REVIEW RIGHTS

The Freedom of Information Act 1982 (the FOI Act) gives you the right to apply for a review of this
decision via:

(a)
an internal review; or
(b)
the Australian Information Commissioner (Information Commissioner).

Internal review

If you apply for internal review, it wil be carried out by a different decision-maker who will make a
fresh decision on your application. An application for review must be:

(a)
made in writing;
(b)
made within 30 days of receiving this letter; and
(c)
sent to xxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx.

No particular form is required, but it is desirable to set out in the application the grounds upon which
you consider the decision should be reviewed.

If the internal review results in you not being provided access to all of the documents to which you
have requested access, you have the right to seek a review of that decision by the Information
Commissioner.

Information Commissioner review
You can opt to instead seek external review by the Information Commissioner. To seek review, you
must apply to the Information Commissioner within 60 days of the receipt of this decision letter.
Further details on this process can be found on their website at ht ps://www.oaic.gov.au/.
You wil also have the opportunity to seek Information Commissioner review of an Internal Review if
you are dissatisfied with its outcome.

Complaints to the Information Commissioner

Information Commissioner

You may also complain to the Information Commissioner concerning action taken by an agency in
the exercise of powers or the performance of functions under the FOI Act. There is no fee for
making a complaint. A complaint to the Information Commissioner must be made in writing. Further
details on this process can be found on their website at https:/ www.oaic.gov.au/.

Document Outline