FOI 973/25/26
Jed Cox
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxx.xxx.xx
Dear Jed,
NOTIFICATION OF A REQUEST CONSULTATION PROCESS – FOI 973/25/26
I refer to your request for access to the following documents, in the possession of the Department of
Defence (Defence) under the
Freedom of Information Act 1982 (Cth) (FOI Act).
I am an officer authorised under section 23(1) of the FOI Act to make decisions in relation to FOI
requests.
I am writing to tell you that I believe that the work involved in processing your request in its current
form would substantially and unreasonably divert the resources of this agency from its other
operations due to its broad scope. This is called a ‘practical refusal reason’ (section 24AA).
On this basis, I intend to refuse your request. However, before I make a final decision to do this, you
have an opportunity to revise your request. This is called a ‘request consultation process’ as set out
under section 24AB of the FOI Act. You have
14 days to respond to this notice in one of the ways set
out below.
Reason for Intending to Refuse Your Request
In your request, you sought documents relating to:
…any documents visually showing the structure of the Army, RAN, and RAAF, aswell as any
other major commands if available (ADFHQ, HQ JOC, etc).
For the purpose of providing this notice, I have considered whether processing your request would
be unreasonable. I consider that processing your request, as it currently stands, would be
unreasonable because the work involved in processing your request in its current form would
substantially and unreasonably divert the resources of the agency from its other operations.
Section 24(1) of the FOI Act provides that an agency may refuse to give access to documents in
accordance with an FOI request if:
• a practical refusal reason exists in relation to the request; and
• following a request consultation process under section 24AB of the FOI Act, the agency is
satisfied that the practical refusal reason still exists.
Section 24AA(1)(a)(i) of the FOI Act provides that a practical refusal reason exists in relation to an FOI
request if the work involved in processing the request would substantially and unreasonably divert
the resources of the department from its other operations.
I find that a significant amount of resources would have to be diverted to arrange for the required
searches to be undertaken, to then review any documents that were identified as being possibly
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relevant to your request, and finally, to undertake the decision making process on any documents
that did meet the parameters of your request. This assessment is based on:
• The scope does not contain a defined time period for documents (i.e. current and/or past).
• Any search conducted of Defence systems will only identify the terms in the title of the
document rather than the contents within. Therefore, to satisfy the parameters of the
request, a manual review of all material that may contain a visual representation of the
operational command would be required in the first instance.
• Due to the array of material, input from multiple stakeholders is required, and review of the
contents of multiple documents to find the specific sections that relate to the scope.
A preliminary search undertaken by one Defence team has identified that in excess of 4096
documents would need to be reviewed in the first instance. Using a conservative estimate of two
minutes to retrieve, open and consider each document, it would take one full time staff member in
excess of 136 hours to examine these documents for relevance alone.
Further, searches undertaken by a second Defence team revealed that they hold over 3012
documents that would require manual review and consideration. Using the same estimate as above,
it would take one full time staff member in excess of 100 hours to examine these documents for
relevance.
I note that these estimates reflect preliminary searches undertaken by two pertinent teams only, and
therefore I regard the actual time required to fulfil this request to be significant. In
VMQD and
Commissioner of Taxation (Freedom of information) [2018] AATA 4619 (17 December 2018) at
paragraph 101, the Senior Tribunal Member Puplick stated that “what constitutes valid practical
refusal grounds is thus agency specific and resource dependent. Nevertheless, for any agency, a
burden in excess of 200 hours would almost certainly make the threshold of a rational and objective
test”.
The extent of the current scope renders accurate sampling impossible due to the broadness of the
document types, the undefined date range, the inability to locate prevalent material without
significant manual review and extraction in the first instance, and the requirement to consult with
multiple stakeholders due to the array of material that would currently fall within scope of the
request. For the reasons outline above, I am satisfied that your request as it is currently framed,
constitutes valid practical refusal grounds.
Request Consultation Process
You now have an opportunity to revise your request to enable Defence to process it.
Revising your request can mean narrowing the scope of the request to make it more manageable or
explaining in more detail the documents you wish to access. For example, by providing more specific
information about exactly what documents you are interested in, Defence will be able to pinpoint
the documents more quickly and avoid using excessive resources to process documents you are not
interested in.
Before the end of the consultation period, you must do one of the following, in writing:
• Withdraw your request
• Make a revised request
• Tell us that you do not wish to revise your request.
The consultation period starts on the day after you receive this notice and ends on
29 January 2026.
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If you revise your request in a way that adequately addresses the practical refusal reason outlined
above, we will recommence processing it. (Please note that the time taken to consult you regarding
the scope of your request is not taken into account for the purposes of the 30 day time limit for
processing your request.)
In your consideration of submitting a revised request, you may like to consider:
• Providing a timeframe for documents;
• Limiting your request to be for one type of document; and
• Limiting your request to be for a particular Defence Service and/or Operational Command.
If you do not do one of the three things listed above during the consultation period your request will
be taken to have been withdrawn.
Contact Officer
If you would like to revise your request or have any questions, please contact the Freedom of
Information Case Manager by email at:
xxx.xxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxx.xxx.xx
Yours sincerely,
Executive Level 1 officer
Freedom of Information Directorate
Governance
Group
Department of Defence
Russell Offices
R1-05-A PO Box 7910
Canberra BC ACT 2610
15 January 2026
