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Practical refusal
A
practical refusal reason exists under section 24AA of the FOI Act if either (or both) of the following
applies:
(1)(a)(i) the work involved in the processing of the request would substantially and
unreasonably divert the resources of the Department from its other operations
(1)(b) the request does not satisfy the requirement in section 15(2)(b) of the FOI Act, which
requires you to provide such information concerning the document you are seeking
access to, to enable the Department to be able to identify it.
I consider that the work involved in the processing of the request would substantially and
unreasonably divert the resources of the Department from its other operations, and accordingly that
practical refusal reasons exist under section 24AA(1)(a)(i) of the FOI Act.
Reasons for practical refusal
The Department has made a preliminary assessment of the documents that would be captured by
your request.
The Department has identified 30 documents relevant to your request. It has taken the Department
14 hours to identify and retrieve the relevant documents. Preparing a schedule of documents to
assist with decision making would require a further
2 hours. This schedule is necessary to manage
the complexity of the request.
The 30 documents relevant to your request contain information concerning
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agencies. The Department considers that the agencies to which this information relates might
reasonably wish to make a contention that the documents are conditionally exempt under section
47B and 37(2)(b) of the FOI Act. As such, the Department must not decide to grant access to those
documents unless the affected agencies have been given a reasonable opportunity to submit
exemption submissions. I estimate that this consultation process would take on average, an hour
and a half per agency due to the sensitive nature of the documents and require a total of at least
36 hours to complete. This includes managing any queries raised by the agencies regarding the
consultations.
In order to finalise the request, after receiving any third party agencies' exemption submissions, a
decision maker would be required to assess the 30 documents, consisting of 242 pages. Based on
requiring
5 minutes to assess each page, I estimate the decision maker would need
20.16 hours
to complete making a decision on access. This would include deciding whether to grant, refuse or
defer access to the 30 documents, or to grant access to edited copies. It would also include using
resources to examine, copy or edit the documents and to notify you of a decision on your request.
Assessment time: 30 documents/ 242 pages x 5 minutes per page = 20.16 hours plus 36 hours for
consultation plus 2 hours to prepare a schedule = 58.16 hours.
As such, a total estimated time of
58.16 hours would be required to process this request.
I am satisfied that the Department would need to divert significant resources from its current
operations. Preparing consultation documents for each agency, held within the Department, and
making a decision on access to those documents would require notable effort. This diversion would
result in a significant drain on the resources of the areas within the Department that would be
required to process this request.
I consider that this would result in the request imposing both a substantial and unreasonable
diversion of resources from the Department's other operations, and that a practical refusal reason
exists in relation to this request.
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You now have an opportunity to revise your request to enable it to proceed. You may wish to
consider the following option:
• As the request is specific to NSW and Victoria, we suggest that the package could focus
solely on documents prepared by NSW and Victoria only; such as email correspondence
and mapping documents from September to November 2025.
Under section 24AB(6) of the FOI Act, you have 14 days to do one of the following:
• withdraw your request;
• make a revised request;
• indicate that you do not wish to revise your request.
If you do not do one of the three things listed above during the consultation period (14 days), or you
do not consult the contact person listed below during this period, your request will be taken to have
been withdrawn in accordance with section 24AB(7) of the FOI Act.
Contact
Should you wish to revise your request or have any questions in relation to this process, please do
not hesitate to contact Lucksika
at xxx@xxxxxxxxxxx.xxx.xx.
Yours sincerely
Electronically signed
Lucksika
Position number 60016902
Freedom of Information
Privacy, FOI and Records Management Branch | Legal Group
Department of Home Affairs
E: xxx@xxxxxxxxxxx.xxx.xx
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