26 May 2017
Mr James SMITH
By ema
il: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxx.xxx.xx
In reply please quote: FOI Request: FA 17/05/01168
File Number: ADF2017/54377
Dear Mr SMITH
Acknowledgement of Freedom of Information Access request
This letter refers to an access request received under the
Freedom of Information Act 1982 (the FOI Act) on 20 May 2017, seeking access to:
“The scope of this request is limited to documents connected to decisions made in
relation to enterprise bargaining ballots undertaken since 1 January 2014.
I request all documents which:
1. Justify to the relevant decision maker the use of all, or particular, characteristics of
the voting employees, including, but not limited to employee location, APS level,
business area, gender, full-time/part-time, casual, etc.
2. Explain any benefits to you, as employer, in obtaining breakdowns of any of the
characteristics.
3. Justify the reasons for using the particular voter characteristics used in ballots.
4. Are put to, or created by, the departmental Executive, or the SES responsible for
bargaining, and make any reference to any breakdowns of particular voter
characteristics, for any purpose.
5. Give notice to employees prior to the ballots to explain what information was to be
used in the ballot process.
I exclude from the scope of this request any documents that have already been
released through FOI.”
Your request has been allocated FOI request number FA 17/05/01168. Please include your
FOI request number in all correspondence with the Freedom of Information (FOI) Section.
6 Chan Street Belconnen ACT 2617
PO Box 25 BELCONNEN ACT 2616 • Telephone 02 6264 1111 • Website:
www.border.gov.au
- 2 -
Exclusion of non-SES staff personal details and SES telephone contact details The Department’s 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,
contained in documents that fall within scope of an FOI request. If you require names and
contact details of non-SES officers, or direct telephone numbers of SES staff, please inform
us so the decision maker may consider your request. Otherwise we will take it that you agree
to that information being excluded from the scope of your request.
Timeframe for request The statutory time frame provided under the FOI Act for processing requests is a standard
30 calendar days. Due to the unprecedented number of requests currently being received by
the Department, our processing times have increased.
We appreciate your patience and understanding during this busy time and we will endeavour
to finalise your request as soon as possible. Although we endeavour to have all requests
finalised within the statutory timeframes, this is not practicable at this time. Requests that are
outside the processing timeframes under the FOI Act will still continue to be processed by
the Department.
FOI requests will generally be processed in the order that they are received. As the number
of cases on-hand continues to increase, we are unable to give you an exact date for the
finalisation of your request. In some cases where a request is specific and is seeking to
access a single document the Department may process this type of request within the 30 day
timeframe.
Contacting the FOI Section If you wish to discuss your access request you may contact the FOI Section using the details
provided below.
Contacting the Department You can contact us with an enquiry in a number of ways including by email, through our
website; by telephone, through our Service Centres or offices around the world, or in person.
In Australia you can call 13 18 81 between 9 am and 4 pm Monday to Friday. Details on
submitting a webform, or contacting our offices outside Australia are available on our website
at
www.border.gov.au.
Yours sincerely
Karen Chapman
Freedom of Information Section
Department of Immigration and Border Protection
Email
xxx@xxxxxx.xxx.xx
Document Outline
