2
Authority to make decision
I am an officer authorised under section 23 of the FOI Act to make decisions in respect of requests
to access documents or to amend or annotate records.
3
Relevant material
In reaching my decision I referred to the following:
• the terms of your request
• the documents relevant to the request
• the FOI Act
• Guidelines published by the Office of the Information Commissioner under section 93A of
the FOI Act (the FOI Guidelines)
• advice from Departmental officers with responsibility for matters relating to the documents
to which you sought access
4
Documents in scope of request
The Department has identified three documents as falling within the scope of your request. These
documents were in the possession of the Department on 3 September 2025 when your request was
received.
Attachment A is a schedule which describes the relevant documents and sets out my decision in
relation to each of them.
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Decision
The decision in relation to the documents in the possession of the Department which fall within the
scope of your request is as follows:
• Release two documents in part with deletions
• Refuse access to one document on the basis that it is publicly available on LEGEND
6
Reasons for Decision
Where the schedule of documents indicates an exemption claim has been applied to a document or
part of document, my findings of fact and reasons for deciding that the exemption provision applies
to that information are set out below.
6.1 Section 12 of the FOI Act – document open to public access
One document relevant to your request can be accessed through LEGEND.com by subscription.
LEGENDcom is an electronic database of all migration and citizenship legislation and policy
documents. This is available to the public on a subscription basis, at:
LEGENDcom. LEGENDcom
is also available to the public for free at a number of libraries that subscribe to LEGENDcom through
t
he Commonwealth Library deposit and free issue scheme.
The document relevant to your request is available at the following link:
legend.border.gov.au/migration/2021-2024/2025/19-09-2025/acts/Pages/ document00011/ level
200227/Direction-No-105.aspx
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Section 12(1)(b) of the FOI Act provides that a person is not entitled to access a document that is
open to public access, as part of a public register or otherwise, in accordance with another
enactment, where that access is subject to a fee or other charge.
As the document is available on LEGEND, I consider that you are not entitled to access to the
document under the FOI Act
6.2 Section 22 of the FOI Act – irrelevant to request
Section 22 of the FOI Act provides that if giving access to a document would disclose information
that would reasonably be regarded as irrelevant to the request, it is possible for the Department to
prepare an edited copy of the document, modified by deletions, ensuring that the edited copy would
not disclose any information that would reasonably be regarded as irrelevant to the request.
On 9 September 2025, the Department advised you that its policy is to exclude the personal details
of officers not in the Senior Executive Service (SES), as well as the mobile and work telephone
numbers of SES staff and non-public facing email addresses, contained in documents that fall within
scope of an FOI request.
I have decided that parts of documents marked
‘s22(1)(a)(ii)’ would disclose information that could
reasonably be regarded as irrelevant to your request. I have prepared an edited copy of the
documents, with the irrelevant material deleted pursuant to section 22(1)(a)(ii) of the FOI Act.
The remainder of the documents have been released to you as they are relevant to your request.
7
Legislation
A copy of the FOI Act is available at https://www.legislation.gov.au/Series/C2004A02562. If you are
unable to access the legislation through this website, please contact our office for a copy.
8
Your review rights
Internal review
You do not have the right to seek an internal review of this decision. This is because section 54E(b)
of the FOI Act provides that, when an agency is deemed to have refused an FOI request under
section 15AC of the FOI Act, the applicant does not have the right to seek an internal review of the
deemed decision.
The Department was deemed to have refused your request under section 15AC of the FOI Act
because it did not make this decision within the statutory timeframes for the request.
While the Department has now made a substantive decision on your request, section 15AC of the
FOI Act continues to apply to your request, which means that any request you make for internal
review will be invalid.
Information Commissioner review
You can instead request the Australian Information Commissioner to review this decision. If you want
to request an Information Commissioner review, you must make your request to the Office of the
Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) within 60 days of being notified of this decision.
You can apply for an Information Commissioner review at:
Information Commissioner review
application form on the OAIC website.
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If you have already applied for an Information Commissioner review, there is no need to make a new
review request. The OAIC will contact you shortly to give you an opportunity to advise whether you
wish the review to continue, and to provide your reasons for continuing the review.
You can find more information about Information Commissioner reviews
on the OAIC website.
9
Making a complaint
You may make a complaint to the Australian Information Commissioner if you have concerns about
how the Department has handled your request under the FOI Act. This is a separate process to the
process of requesting a review of the decision as indicated above.
You can make an FOI complaint to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC)
at
: FOI Complaint Form on the OAIC website.
10 Contacting the FOI Section
Should you wish to discuss this decision, please do not hesitate to contact the FOI Section at
xxx@xxxxxxxxxx.xxx.xx.
Yours sincerely,
Signed electronically
Louise
Position number 60081621
Authorised Decision Maker
Department of Home Affairs
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