LEX9198
Andrew
By email: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxx.xxx.xx
Dear Andrew
FOI Request: Freedom of Information Request No. LEX 9198
Your FOI request
On 31 May 2025 you wrote to the Australian Electoral Commission (
AEC) seeking access under the
Freedom of Information Act 1982 (the FOI Act) to:
- the directions issued under s274(2A), s274(7A), s276 and s277 of the Commonwealth Electoral Act
1918 during the scrutiny of the 2025 federal election
- any policies or internal guidance (however described) regarding the decision to issue directions under
those sections (including any guidance around the selection of candidates for 2CP and the decision to
conduct 3CP or other non-traditional counts)
Extension and revised request
On 23 June 2025, we wrote you seeking your agreement to a 7 day extension. You agreed to this
extension on the same day.
On 30 June 2025, we initiated a s 24AB consultation with you to narrow the scope of your request. This
was because the scope of your initial request returned over 200 documents from the line area, which
we consider to be a voluminous amount for the purposes of the FOI Act. Processing the request in its
original form would have unreasonably diverted the AEC’s resource.
You replied on 1 July 2025 with a narrower scope. The scope of your request is therefore as follows:
* the directions issued under s274(2A), s274(7A), s276 and s277 of the Commonwealth
Electoral Act 1918 in relation to the Division of Canberra
* the directions issued under s274(2A) and s274(7A) of the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918
in relation to any division classified as a "maverick" division (i.e. where the original 2CP throw
was determined to be incorrect), or where a 3CP count was conducted (I can probably create
a list of these divisions if the line area doesn't have this list readily available)
* any policies or internal guidance (however described) regarding the decision to issue
directions under those sections (including any guidance around the selection of candidates for
2CP and the decision to conduct 3CP or other non-traditional counts)
Additionally:
* I confirm per standard FOI practice, I am happy to exclude names, signatures and contact
details of AEC staff as you see fit for privacy/operational reasons
LEX9198
* If any of the groups of directions I've requested happen to consist of documents with common
pages of boilerplate, I'm happy to take one document with all the pages as an exemplar, and
then just the pages that are different for the rest of the documents, if that is helpful to you
You followed up this email on the same day with a list of divisions that hold the documents you seek.
These divisions include: Bean, Bendigo, Blaxland, Brisbane, Bullwinkel, Calwell, Farrer, Fisher,
Flinders, Forrest, Franklin, Fraser, Fremantle, Grey, Griffith, Hunter, Macnamara, Maranoa, Mayo,
Melbourne, Monash, Newcastle, Richmond, Ryan, and Watson.
Identification of documents
I identified
54 documents that fell within the scope of your FOI Request (the ‘Relevant Documents’).
I did this by contacting the relevant areas of the AEC.
The schedule of documents in
Attachment A provides a description of each of the Relevant
Documents and the access decision for each of the Relevant Documents.
Decision
With regard to the Relevant Documents identified in
Attachment A, I have decided:
• Access in ful : Document Nos. 1-3, 5-8, 10-15, 17, 18, 20-28, 30, 31, 33-35, 37-41, 43-46,
48, 51, and 53
• Edited copies: Document Nos. 4, 9, 16, 19, 29, 32, 36, 42, 47, 49, 50, 52, and 54
• Refuse access (to parts of documents): Document Nos. 4, 9, 16, 19, 29, 32, 36, 42, 52, and
54
The relevant documents are provided as a separate attachment to this decision in a zip file.
More information, including my reasons for my decision, is set out in
Attachment B. Disclosure log
Section 11C of the FOI Act requires that the documents released under section 11A are published
unless it would be unreasonable to do so.
I have determined that it is not unreasonable to publish these documents. These documents wil be
published on t
he Freedom of Information (FOI) Disclosure Log - Australian Electoral Commission within
10 business days.
Review rights
You are entitled to seek review of this decision.
Attachment C sets out your rights to apply for review
if you are dissatisfied with my decision.
Yours sincerely
Carys
Australian Electoral Commission
LEX9198
