8 January 2020
JS
Right to Know
By email:
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxx.xxx.xx
Dear JS
Freedom of Information Request (R2019/139) – Notice of Decision
I refer to your request to the Registered Organisations Commission (
ROC) dated 20 December
2019 seeking access to information under the
Freedom of Information Act 1982 (
FOI Act),
which stated as follows:
Under FOI I seek access to a copy of the documents released on 2 Dec 2019 (ROC2019/134) and
reflected in the disclosure log as:
Request for documents received or sent to the Attorney-General or the Attorney-General’s Department
or the Department of Jobs and Small Business by the Registered Organisations Commission in the
period 1 July and 30 September 2019 which deals with, includes references to, describe, relate or refer
to the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment (Ensuring Integrity) Bill 2019.
Five documents released in full, 69 documents released in part with personal and irrelevant information
redacted and 16 documents exempt in full.
I confirm that this decision is made within the 30 day statutory period for processing your
request pursuant to section 15 of the FOI Act.
Decision and Statement of Reasons
I am authorised by the Registered Organisations Commissioner, under section 23 of the FOI
Act, to make decisions on requests for access to documents.
In reaching my decision, I have considered the following:
the terms of the FOI request
the documents relevant to the FOI request
the FOI Act
the Guidelines issued by the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner under
section 93A of the FOI Act (
FOI Guidelines).
The material facts upon which the decision is based are as follows:
the ROC previously received freedom of information requests denoted by the
reference R2019/134
on 2 December 2019, a decision on that FOI request was issued, which resulted in the
release of 74 documents with full access granted to 5 documents and partial access
granted to 69 documents. Access was refused in relation to 16 documents.
the matter was added to the ROC’s Disclosure Log, which is located on the ROC
website at
https://www.roc.gov.au/about-us/freedom-of-information
the information sought in your FOI request is access to the documents previously
released in response to FOI request R2019/134.
74 documents fall within the scope of your request. I have decided to grant access to those
74 documents in the form in which they were released in response to FOI request R2019/134.
Section 22 of the FOI Act provides that an agency or minister can give access to an edited
document, modified by deletions to ensure the edited copy does not disclose any information
that would reasonably be regarded as irrelevant to the request for access. I notify you,
consistent with section 22(3) of the FOI Act, that the documents released in response to FOI
request R2019/134 were released subject to certain information being redacted.
The Schedule of Documents at
Attachment A sets out brief information about each document
within the scope of your request.
You have requested that all replies to the request be provided to you via email, however, due
to size restrictions, this will not be pragmatic. Accordingly, it will be necessary to provide the
documents to you on a USB drive. The USB drive can be made available for collection from
the office of the Fair Work Ombudsman at Level 12, 414 La Trobe Street, Melbourne.
Alternatively, the USB drive can be posted to you with the original copy of this letter in the
ordinary post to a nominated postal address.
Review rights
If you are dissatisfied with my decision, you may apply for internal review or to the Information
Commissioner for review of the decision.
Internal Review
Under section 54 of the FOI Act, you may apply in writing to the ROC for internal review of my
decision. The internal review application must be made within 30 days of the date of this letter
to:
email:
xxxxxxx@xxx.xxx.xx or
post:
GPO Box 2983, Melbourne VIC 3001
Where possible, please attach reasons why you believe review of the decision is necessary.
The internal review will be carried out by another officer within 30 days.
Information Commissioner Review
Under section 54L of the FOI Act, you may apply to the Australian Information Commissioner
to review my decision. An application for review by the Information Commissioner must be
made in writing within 60 days of the date of this letter, and be lodged in one of the following
ways:
online:
https://forms.business.gov.au/aba/oaic/foi-review-/
email:
xxxxxxxxx@xxxx.xxx.xx
post:
GPO Box 2999, Canberra ACT 2601
in person: Level 3, 175 Pitt Street, Sydney NSW
More information about Information Commissioner review is available on the Office of the
Australian Information Commissioner website. Go to
www.oaic.gov.au/freedom-of-
information/foi-reviews.
Complaint rights
If you are dissatisfied about any action taken by the ROC in the performance of functions, or
the exercise of powers, under the FOI Act, you may make a complaint by:
writing to the Information Commissioner in one of the ways provided above; and
identify the ROC as the agency in respect of which the complaint is made.
Yours faithfully
Patrick Coyle
Legal Counsel
Registered Organisations Commission