Our reference: FOI 24/25-2113 (LEXD 696)
GPO Box 700
Canberra ACT 2601
1800 800 110
25 July 2025
ndis.gov.au
Accessibility Anonymous
By email: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxx.xxx.xx
Dear Accessibility Anonymous
Freedom of Information request — Notification of Decision
Thank you for your correspondence of 28 May 2025, in which you requested access to
documents held by the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA), under the
Freedom of
Information Act 1982 (FOI Act).
The purpose of this letter is to provide you with a decision on your request.
Scope of your request
You have requested access to the following documents:
1. All training materials for internal or external legal teams and/or case manager which
address topics related to disability awareness, accessibility, discrimination, or
reasonable adjustments.
2. Ethical standards expected of external legal representatives and barristers (whether
engaged directly or by external solicitors).
3. Al documents relating to NDI policy and posture on adjustments requested by
participants for any stage of ART proceedings (whether self-represented or legally
represented).
4. Any unpublished advice or feedback from the Independent Expert Review trial
regarding participant accessibility needs and reasonable adjustments.
5. Any related directives from the Board, CEO or Deputy CEO.
6. Any standard operating procedures, checklists, or other process guidance for
ensuring these obligations are met and appropriately documented.
7. Any documentation relating to accountability and reporting mechanisms.
8. Any briefings prepared for the CEO, Board, or Minister which reference the NDIA’s
compliance with the ART’s accessibility objective.
9. Any documents relating to the NDIA’s preparation to comply with the expanded
accessibility requirement upon commencement of the ART.
10. Any guidance documents relating to adjustments potentially required for participants
with different disabilities to participate effectively in proceedings.
Please include any documents which have not yet been updated to reflect the transition from
the AAT to the ART, and any documents stil in draft form.
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Decision on access to documents
I am authorised to make decisions under section 23(1) of the FOI Act. My decision on your
request and the reasons for my decision are set out below.
On 29 May 2025, you responded to an email from the FOI team by stating, “I would be
grateful if you could … ask the FOI officer this is allocated to reaches out to me as a priority
to address any clarifications or refinements [of the scope of my request”.
On 10 June 2025, I emailed you advising that I had been allocated your request. I wrote:
“As Mackenzie stated in her email, she carried out some preliminary enquiries
regarding your request. In response to those enquiries, the Legal Operations team
has advised that identifying and locating documents falling within the scope of your
request would involve multiple stakeholders over numerous agency business areas,
including the Ministers’ offices, the agency’s CEO, the NDIS Board, external law
firms, case managers, agency employed lawyers, support teams and reporting
teams. Given there is no timeframe around your request, processing it would also
involve searching many different business systems that have been used over the
past 12 years as well as agency archives. Your request also does not differentiate
between drafts or final documents.
The Legal Operations team has ventured the opinion that processing your request in
its current form would substantially and unreasonably divert the agency’s resources
from its other operations. In those circumstances, a practical refusal arises under
section 24AA of the Freedom of Information Act 1982. I note your request that the
decision-maker reach out to you to address clarification and refinement of your
request and that is the purpose of my email.
If you could provide me with a contact phone number and advice of some suitable
dates and times to call you, we can address your request.”
I have not received a response to this email.
On 9 July 2025, I emailed you attaching a letter addressed to you. In this letter, I advised
that the work involved in processing your request in its current form would substantially and
unreasonably divert the resources of the NDIA from its other operations. I informed you that,
on that basis, I intended to refuse your request but was entering into a request consultation
process with you under section 24AB of the FOI Act.
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I provided you with the reasons behind my intention to refuse your request and suggested
ways in which you might reduce the scope of your request. I also informed you that you had
14 days to contact me and either withdraw your request, make a revised request or indicate
that you did not wish to revise your request.
I referred to the contents of my email of 10 June 2015 and wrote:
“Given the breadth of your request, I consider it likely there would be hundreds of
pages worth of material that falls within the scope of your request as currently
worded. Each of these pages would then require review and collation by an FOI
officer. The documents that are assessed as being within scope of the request wil
then need to be reviewed for any sensitivities and possible exemption under the FOI
Act and scheduled, we wil need to consider any consultations and carry these out if
required, a decision wil need to be made on each document, and a decision letter
prepared. This wil significantly increase the hours that it wil take an FOI officer to
process your request.
The work carried out by the FOI team would be in addition to the work carried out by
the Legal Operations team and other areas of the Agency simply to identify and
retrieve the documents.”
To date I have not received any contact from you.
I have therefore decided to refuse your request under section 24AA(1) of the FOI Act, which
relevantly provides:
For the purposes of section 24, a
practical refusal reason exists in relation to a request for
a document if either (or both) of the following applies:
(a) The work involved in processing the request:
(i)
In the case of an agency – would substantially and unreasonably divert the
resources of the agency from its other operations; …
(ii)
…
(b) The request does not satisfy the requirement in paragraph 15(2)(b) (identification of
documents).
In reaching my decision, I took the following into account:
• your correspondence outlining the scope of your request
• the nature and content of the documents falling within the scope of your request
• the FOI Act
• the FOI Guidelines published under section 93A of the FOI Act
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• consultation with relevant NDIA staff
• your failure to respond to my correspondence of 10 June and 9 July 2025
• the NDIA’s operating environment and functions.
Rights of review
Your rights to seek a review of my decision, or lodge a complaint, are set out at
Attachment A.
Should you have any enquiries concerning this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me
by email at xxx@xxxx.xxx.xx.
Yours sincerely
Helen
[HIL533]
Assistant Director, Freedom of Information
Information Release, Privacy and Legal Operations Branch
Reviews and Information Release Division
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Attachment A
Your review rights
As this matter was a deemed refusal, internal review of this decision is not an option.
However, if you have concern with any aspect of this decision, please contact the NDIA FOI
team by email xxx@xxxx.xxx.xx or by post:
Freedom of Information Section
Information Release, Privacy and Legal Operations Branch
Reviews and Information Release Division
GPO Box 700
CANBERRA ACT 2601
Review by the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner
The FOI Act gives you the right to apply to the Office of the Australian Information
Commissioner (OAIC) to seek a review of this decision.
If you wish to have the decision reviewed by the OAIC, you may apply for the review, in
writing, or by using the online merits review form available on OAIC’s website via: OAIC Web
Form, within 60 days of receipt of this letter.
Applications for review can be lodged with the OAIC in the following ways:
Online: OAIC Web Form
Post:
GPO Box 5218, Sydney NSW 2001
Email:
xxxxxxxxx@xxxx.xxx.xx
Phone:
1300 363 992 (local call charge)
Website: www.oaic.gov.au
Complaints to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner or the
Commonwealth Ombudsman
You may complain to either the Commonwealth Ombudsman or the OAIC about actions
taken by the NDIA in relation to your request. The Ombudsman wil consult with the OAIC
before investigating a complaint about the handling of an FOI request.
Your complaint to the OAIC can be directed to the contact details identified above. Your
complaint to the Ombudsman can be directed to:
Phone: 1300 362 072 (local call charge)
Email:
xxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxx.xxx.xx
Your complaint should be in writing and should set out the grounds on which it is considered
that the actions taken in relation to the request should be investigated.
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