Our reference: FOI 24/25-0004 (LEX ID 1084)
GPO Box 700
Canberra ACT 2601
1800 800 110
ndis.gov.au
10 September 2025
David Wright
Right To Know
By email: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxx.xxx.xx
Dear David Wright,
Your Freedom of Information request — Notification of Decision
Thank you for your correspondence of 1 July 2025, in which you requested access under the
Freedom of Information Act 1982 (FOI Act) to documents held by the National Disability
Insurance Agency (NDIA).
The purpose of this letter is to provide you with a decision on your request.
Scope of your request
You have requested access to documents about the National Disability Insurance Scheme
(NDIS). Specifical y, you requested access to:
“Dear National Disability Insurance Agency,
Please provide the fol owing information for al Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT)
/ Administrative Review Tribunal (ART) matters to which the NDIA was a Respondent,
for the 12 months from 1 July 2024 to 31 June 2025:
1. For al AAT/ART matters that went to hearing, the overal average number of days
that a matter was at hearing, and the overal average daily cost per matter incurred by
the NDIA in participating in those hearings (being the cost of hearing days only).
2. For al AAT/ART matters, including those matters that did not go to hearing, the
average total monthly cost per matter incurred by the agency in being a Respondent
in these AAT/ART matters.
When providing the costs in relation to both (1) and (2) above, please include al of the
fol owing costs:
1) All legal costs (both internal agency legal costs, and the costs of engaging external
law services).
2) All costs of engaging expert witnesses (including both those engaged directly by the
agency, and those engaged by external law firms that the agency has engaged).
3) Transcription services.
4) Any other costs incurred by the agency (either directly, or indirectly through external
law services) in responding to these matters.
Yours faithful y,
David Wright”
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Extension of time
The FOI Act provides 30 calendar days for the processing of an FOI request after it is
received. As your valid FOI request was received on 1 July 2025, the original due date for
your request was 31 July 2025.
On 23 July 2025, you agreed to a 30-day extension of time under section 15AA of the FOI Act,
making 30 August 2025 the new date to provide you with a decision on access.
We have been experiencing processing delays and were not able to provide you with our
decision by the due date. I sincerely apologise for the delay in releasing this decision to you
and thank you for your patience while we progressed your application. As this is a deemed
decision, we have submitted an application to the Office of the Australian Information
Commissioner (OAIC) seeking a 10-day extension to process the request under section 15AC
of the FOI Act. On 9 September 2025, the OAIC granted our request for further time under s
15AC of the FOI Act, making the new date for decision 10 September 2025.
Consultation
In response to consultations with responsible business areas, I’ve been advised the fol owing:
• Invoices for the external legal costs are not issued until individual phases of the matter
have been completed.
• We are currently unable to confirm that al external legal service providers have
submitted all invoices for matters that wil form part of the 12 month period listed in the
scope.
• Costs for hearings are bil ed at a fixed fee rate, which means that the isolated cost of
hearing days cannot be extrapolated for the information available.
• There are no records kept for the in-house time spent and cost incurred for individual
ART matters. Relevant documents cannot be created without being an unreasonable
diversion of resources.
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 hereunder.
At this time, noting your request was received on 1 July 2025, and the explanation of available
information, I have decided to refuse your request for access under section 24A of the FOI Act.
Section 24A al ows a refusal when after reasonable steps have been taken to locate and
retrieve the documents you have requested, and I am satisfied that they currently do not exist
to the extent of the scope of your request.
In considering your request, I considered that you probably intended that a document be
created using the available data, as may be required under section 17 of the FOI Act.
As stated above some of the information required to consider the timeframe identified has not
been received. Additional y, once received, the information is not recorded in such a way that
we would be able to run a report and produce a document in answer to your request. Meaning
that a manual review would be required of all matters to create an answer. For these reasons,
I consider that section 17 does not apply in this instance.
In reaching my decision, I took into account:
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• Your correspondence outing the particulars of your request;
• The FOI Act including:
o Section 11 Right of Access
o Section 17 Requests Involving Computers
o 24A Requests may be refused if documents cannot be found, do exist or have
not been received;
• The FOI Guidelines including Part 3 section 3.22, 3.23 and 3.24
• The IC review decision, Ryan Turner and Department of Home Affairs (Freedom of
information) [2024] AICmr 215 (16 October 2024), and
• Consultation with relevant officers of the NDIA.
Reasons for decisions
Refuse a request for access (section 24A)
Section 24A of the FOI Act provides that an agency may refuse a request for access to a
document if al reasonable steps have been taken to find the document and the agency is
satisfied that the document cannot be found or does not exist.
Searches conducted of the NDIA’s systems, using al reasonable search terms that could
return documents relevant to your request. In addition, I have consulted with relevant NDIA
staff who could be expected to be able to identify documents within the scope of the request,
including staff who are knowledgeable about how to conduct searches of the NDIA’s systems.
I am satisfied that al reasonable steps have been taken to locate the documents you have
requested and to satisfy the documents outlined in the scope of your request currently do not
exist. I have therefore decided to refuse access to your request in accordance with section
24A(1)(b)(ii) of the FOI Act.
Publicly available information
Some information you may be interested is also available on the NDIA’s website, Senate
Order 13, also known as Murray Motion, requires the agency to publish details of individual
contracts.
In addition, you’re welcome to make a fol ow-up request at a later stage. This further time may
give the NDIA time to complete the record of this timeframe.
If it would be helpful, from a data perspective, I would also be happy to discuss the scope of
a future request. So that we can support releasing information that you are interested in and
that systems and records exist to create.
Rights of review
Your rights to seek a review of my decision, or lodge a complaint, are set out at
Attachment A.
Please contact us at xxx@xxxx.xxx.xx if you have any questions or require help.
Yours sincerely
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Robert (RIA421) Senior Freedom of Information Officer
Information Release, Privacy and Legal Operations Branch
Reviews and Information Release Division
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ATTACHMENT A
Your review rights
Internal Review
The FOI Act gives you the right to apply for an internal review of this decision. The review
wil be conducted by a different person to the person who made the original decision.
If you wish to seek an internal review of the decision, you must apply for the review, in
writing, within 30 days of receipt of this letter.
No particular form is required for an application for internal review, but to assist the review
process, you should clearly outline your grounds for review (that is, the reasons why you
disagree with the decision). Applications for internal review can be lodged by email to
xxx@xxxx.xxx.xx or sent by post to:
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 also 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 fol owing ways:
Online:
OAIC Web Form
Post:
GPO Box 5218, Sydney NSW 2001
Email:
xxxxxxxxx@xxxx.xxx.xx
Phone:
1300 363 992 (local cal 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 cal 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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