Your email has been received by the Office of the Australian Information
Commissioner (OAIC). Important: Please note the OAIC is not a central
repository and does not hold documents of other Commonwealth agencies, nor
documents of State or Territory Departments. 

 

FOI requests to the OAIC

 

Important: This email address is only for making requests to obtain access
to document(s) held by the OAIC, pursuant to the Freedom of Information
Act 1982 (Cth) (FOI Act). We will only action and respond to emails making
FOI requests to the OAIC.

For information on how to make an FOI request to the OAIC, and to ensure
that your request complies with the requirements of the FOI Act, please
refer to the FOI page on the OAIC website at:
[1]https://www.oaic.gov.au/about-us/access-...

 

Once your request has been assessed by the OAIC, and registered, an
acknowledgement email will be sent to you with an FOI reference number.

 

Statistics

The OAIC publishes an Australian Government FOI statistics dashboard which
provides key freedom of information (FOI) data over the last 5 years, as
reported by Australian Government agencies and ministers to the OAIC under
the Freedom of Information Act 1982. This dashboard is updated quarterly
and available on our website at [2]Australian Government freedom of
information statistics | OAIC

 

The OAIC does not hold documents of other Commonwealth agencies, nor for
other state agencies, or private organisations. The OAIC does not hold
Police Records or State Government Records. Further information on how to
access these types of records is here [3]Freedom of information requests
to the OAIC

 

Accordingly:

1)       if you are seeking to access documents of a particular
Commonwealth agency, you will need to make your request directly to the
relevant agency. For example, if you are requesting a copy of your visa
records, please make an FOI request and send it to the Department of Home
Affairs. Further details and information is below.

2)       if you are seeking to access documents of a state or local
government agency, each Australian state and territory have separate FOI
legislation which governs information held by state government agencies. 
Please contact the relevant agency as to how to make an application to
access the documents. For example, if you are seeking access to police
reports from the NSW Police Force, this agency is governed by the
Government Information (Public Access) Act 2009 (NSW) (GIPA Act); you will
need to contact NSW Police to find out how to make a GIPA application for
a police report.

3)       if you are seeking to access documents of a private organisation,
which the FOI Act does not apply to, please contact the organisation
directly to find out how to access the documents you are seeking. For
example, if you are seeking to access hospital records or your medical
records, please contact these organisations directly. 

4)       You can request copies of documents directly from other
Commonwealth agencies, such as:
Australian Federal Police
[4]Freedom of Information access requests - AFP
Department of Home Affairs
[5]Freedom of information (homeaffairs.gov.au)- external site
Services Australia
[6]Freedom of information - Services Australia- external site
Department of Veterans Affairs
[7]Freedom of information | Department of Veterans' Affairs (dva.gov.au)-
external site
Australian Taxation Office
[8]Freedom of information (FOI) request – individuals and businesses |
Australian Taxation Office (ato.gov.au)- external site
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (passports)
[9]Freedom of information | Australian Government Department of Foreign
Affairs and Trade (dfat.gov.au)- external site

5)       For other Commonwealth or State agencies, please visit the
relevant agency's website and search 'freedom of information' or 'FOI
request'.

Enquiries and other matters

 

If your email relates to any of the following, please use the OAIC's
online forms at [10]https://www.oaic.gov.au/about-us/contact...

-               Enquiry

-               Privacy Complaint

-               Notifiable Data Breach

-               Consumer Data Right Complaint

-               FOI Complaint

-               Freedom of Information (IC) Review

-               Agency FOI Extension of Time Requests

-               Speech requests.

 

Kind regards

Office of the Australian Information Commissioner

Notice:

The information contained in this email message and any attached files may
be confidential information, and may also be the subject of legal
professional privilege. If you are not the intended recipient any use,
disclosure or copying of this email is unauthorised. If you received this
email in error, please notify the sender by contacting the department's
switchboard on 1300 488 064 during business hours (8:30am - 5pm Canberra
time) and delete all copies of this transmission together with any
attachments.

References

Visible links
1. https://www.oaic.gov.au/about-us/access-...
2. https://www.oaic.gov.au/freedom-of-infor...
3. https://www.oaic.gov.au/about-the-OAIC/a...
4. https://www.afp.gov.au/about-us/governan...
5. https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/access-an...
6. https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/fre...
7. https://www.dva.gov.au/about-us/overview...
8. https://www.ato.gov.au/forms-and-instruc...
9. https://www.dfat.gov.au/about-us/corpora...
10. https://www.oaic.gov.au/about-us/contact...

OAIC reference: FOIREQ25/00429

 

To Seeking Accountability,

 

I refer to your request (below), for access to documents made to the
Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) under the Freedom
of Information Act 1982 (Cth) (FOI Act).

 

Scope of your request

Your FOI request was made in the following terms:

 

I am seeking a full copy of the 2025 OAIC APS Census free text comments as
completed by staff.

 

Timeframes for dealing with your request

Section 15 of the FOI Act requires the OAIC to process your request no
later than 30 days after the day we receive it. Your FOI request was
received by the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC)
on 22 September 2025. The decision on your FOI request therefore falls due
on 22 October 2025.

 

Section 15(6) of the FOI Act allows us a further 30 days in situations
where we need to consult with third parties about certain information,
such as business documents or documents affecting their personal privacy.
We will let you know if the timeframe for issuing you a decision is
extended for any reason, including where we need to consult a third party
during the processing of your matter.

 

If you do not receive a decision within 30 days, or advice that the
statutory timeframe has been extended, you can apply to the Information
Commissioner for review of what is called a ‘deemed decision’. For further
information, see [1]Apply for an Information Commissioner review | OAIC
(or visit [2]www.oaic.gov.au).

 

Disclosure Log
Documents released under the FOI Act may be published online on our
disclosure log, unless they contain personal or business information that
would be unreasonable to publish.

 

Please advise us

To further assist a faster decision, can you please advise whether we can
remove as irrelevant OAIC staff names below Senior Executive Service (SES)
level (roles will always be left in) and mobile telephone numbers and
direct internal contact details of OAIC staff members. If you agree, we
will be able to process your request more quickly and will remove these as
irrelevant material in accordance with section 22(1)(a)(ii) of the FOI
Act.

 

In order to process your request more quickly, I will remove from any
document bundle we provide, duplicate material.

 

If you have any queries, please contact us via email.

 

Regards.

 

Charles

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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