OFFICIAL
06 November 2025
Mr Luke Mc Dacy
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxx.xxx.xx
FOI reference number:2025-06
Dear Mr McDacy
Freedom of Information Request – Decision Letter
I refer to your request under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (FOI Act),
received on 7th October 2025, seeking access to documents held by Infrastructure
Australia relating to the status, progress, or anticipated publication of the
evaluation of the High Speed Rail (Newcastle–Sydney) business case (evaluation
report), prepared by the High Speed Rail Authority and accepted for evaluation in
January 2025. In your request, you specified that you were requesting:
1. Internal or external correspondence (including emails or briefing notes)
created between 1 July 2025 and the date of this request, which refer to:
• The status, progress, or completion of Infrastructure Australia’s evaluation of
the High Speed Rail business case; or
• Any anticipated timeframe for finalisation or public release of the evaluation.
2. Documents or summaries (if available) describing:
• The expected or planned publication date of Infrastructure Australia’s
evaluation of the High Speed Rail (Newcastle–Sydney) business case; or
• Communications between Infrastructure Australia and the High Speed Rail
Authority or the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional
Development, Communications, and the Arts regarding evaluation timelines
or next steps.
OFFICIAL
Infrastructure Australia
Level 19, 60 Martin Place, Sydney NSW 2000
1
GPO Box 5417, Sydney NSW 2001
www.infrastructureaustralia.gov.au
OFFICIAL
For clarity, you were not seeking access to:
• The business case itself or any attachments submitted to Cabinet;
• Material that would reveal Cabinet deliberations; or
• Draft evaluation reports or purely deliberative content.
I have now completed my consideration of your request.
Decision
I have made a decision to:
•
Release eleven documents in part, with redactions applied under section
22 where this material is irrelevant to the scope of your request.
The evaluation report you referred to was
publicly released on 5 November
2025 and is available on Infrastructure Australia’s website at https://
www.infrastructureaustralia.gov.au/evaluations/high-speed-rail-newcastle-
sydney
Access to Documents
Copies of the documents listed in the below schedule are enclosed to this letter.
OFFICIAL
Infrastructure Australia
Level 19, 60 Martin Place, Sydney NSW 2000
2
GPO Box 5417, Sydney NSW 2001
www.infrastructureaustralia.gov.au
OFFICIAL
Schedule of documents
Document Date of
Document description
Decision
Exemption
reference document
1.
Release in part
s 22 – irrelevant
3 July 2025 Email correspondence with IA staff and the
Assistant Secretary,
High Speed Rail and
material
Infrastructure Advisory, in relation to the
HSR evaluation timeline and process
2.
11 July 2025 Email correspondence between IA staff in
Release in part
s 22 – irrelevant
relation to Commissioner meeting papers
material
3.
Release in part
s 22 – irrelevant
15 July 2025 Email correspondence with IA staff and the
Assistant Secretary,
High Speed Rail and
material
Infrastructure Advisory, and Infrastructure
Advisory
4.
Release in part
s 22 – irrelevant
24 July 2025 Email correspondence with IA staff and the
Assistant Secretary
High Speed Rail and
material
Infrastructure Advisory, in relation to the
HSR evaluation
5.
Release in part
s 22 – irrelevant
29 July 2025 Email correspondence with High Speed Rail
Authority in relation to the HSR Evaluation
material
Report - discussion
6.
Email correspondence with IA staff and the Release in part
s 22 – irrelevant
20 August
2025
Assistant Secretary,
High Speed Rail and
material
OFFICIAL
OFFICIAL
Infrastructure Advisory, in relation to the
HSR evaluation
7.
Release in part
s 22 – irrelevant
29 Sep 2025 Email correspondence with IA CEO and the
Assistant Secretary
High Speed Rail and
material
Infrastructure Advisory in relation to the
senate estimate questions
8.
Email correspondence with IA staff and the Release in part
s 22 – irrelevant
30 Sep
2025
Assistant Secretary,
High Speed Rail and
material
Infrastructure Advisory, in relation to the
senate estimate questions
9.
Email correspondence with High Speed Rail Release in part
s 22 – irrelevant
7 October 7
2025
Authority regarding Senate Estimates
material
questions
10.
October 7,
Email correspondence with High Speed Rail Release in part
s 22 – irrelevant
2025
Authority regarding Senate Estimates
material
questions - 7 October 2025 - 2.15-3.00pm
[SEC=OFFICIAL]
11.
October
Release in part
s 22 – irrelevant
Senate Estimates October 2025
2025
material
OFFICIAL
OFFICIAL
Attachment A – Reasons for decision
Material considered
In reaching my decision I relied on the following:
• your request dated 7 October 2025
• relevant sections of the FOI Act
• the FOI Guidelines issued by OAIC under s 93A of the FOI Act
• advice from Infrastructure Australia’s officers.
Findings of fact and reasons for decision
The following are my findings of fact and reasons for my decision.
Section 22 – Documents containing irrelevant material
Under section 22 of the FOI Act, where it is possible and reasonably practicable to
do so, an agency is required to prepare an edited copy of documents that are
required to be given, modified by deletions to exclude exempt or irrelevant
information.
I have understood your request to be specifically targeted at information that
relates to the status, progress, or anticipated publication of the evaluation of the
High Speed Rail (Newcastle–Sydney) business case. As such, where I have
identified information that
does not relate to those matters, I have excluded that
material under section 22 as not within the scope of your request.
Further, because your request excludes draft evaluation reports and purely
deliberative content, where I have identified deliberative matter in the documents
which Infrastructure Australia would consider to be against the public interest to
disclose, I have also exempted it under section 22.
The FOI Guidelines define deliberative matter at paragraph 6.59 as ‘a shorthand
term for ‘opinion, advice and recommendation’ and ‘consultation and deliberation’
that is recorded or reflected in a document’. This means there are parts of the
documents which are relevant to the scope of your request but have been
exempted on the basis of containing relevant opinion, advice, or recommendations,
or, reflect consultation and deliberation on the topic.
OFFICIAL
OFFICIAL
Therefore, examples of information that I consider to be irrelevant to the scope of
your request includes:
• identifying details of Infrastructure Australia’s junior officers and direct
contact details for staff that are not in the public domain
• parts of documents that do not relate to the status, progress, or anticipated
publication of the evaluation report for the High Speed Rail (Newcastle–
Sydney) business case
• parts of documents that do relate to the status, progress, or anticipated
publication of the evaluation report, but would be withheld as exempt under
section 47C of the FOI Act (we did not identify any exempt Cabinet material
within the documents).
Review rights
If you are dissatisfied with this decision, you have the right to seek a review. You
may request an internal review by Infrastructure Australia or apply to the Office of
the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) for Information Commissioner (IC)
review. You can also make an FOI complaint if you are unhappy with the way we
have dealt with your request.
Details on how to request an IC review or make an FOI complaint are available at
www.oaic.gov.au. If you have a complaint, the OAIC would generally expect you to
make the complaint to us first so we can seek to resolve it. We would also
encourage you to seek internal review in the first instance.
You can contact the FOI team xxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx.xx to seek internal
review or if you have any questions regarding this decision.
Kind regards
Amanda Smith
Chief Operating Officer
OFFICIAL
