Dear Mr Smith,
I refer to your FOI request received by the department on 2 May 2020 (LEX-4161).
Publicly Available Information
Documents in relation to the below portion of your request have previously been considered by the department as part of Senate Orders to Produce Documents and other FOI requests. Documents in relation to these are publicly available.
‘In 2017 the company Eastern Australia Agriculture sold water rights to the department for approx $80M.
I wish to obtain a copy of all documents held by the department associated with this transaction. This would include contracts, financial records, transaction statements, etc’
You can find these attached and by visiting https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/publications/tabledpapers/fa585f8d-6f39-43ec-9e46-bef903173df5/upload_pdf/letter%20and%20attachments%20Senate%20Order%20597%20documents%20-%20water%20purchasing%20-%20Condamine%20Balonne.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf#search=%22publications/tabledpapers/fa585f8d-6f39-43ec-9e46-bef903173df5%22
Next Steps
If you are satisfied with the information provided in this link and the attached documents, can you please confirm by Thursday 28 May 2020 that you agree to remove this from your FOI request, and for us to process the remainder of your FOI request, being:
‘I also wish to obtain a copy of all emails in which this transaction has been discussed by SES-level staff within the department (including deleted or archived emails). Please exclude emails that were not sent or recieved by an SES level public servant from the FOI request. To make this part of the FOI request feasible, please restrict this request to only encompass emails that contain either 'Eastern Australian Irrigation' or the acronym 'EAI' as an exact term within the email. (This should make it possible to do a simple electronic search for emails within the department's database).’
Third party consultation
The relevant documents contain personal information of one or more third parties. To inform the decision on release of documents, the FOI Act requires that the above third parties are consulted, and provides a further time period for the consultation process. Subsection 15(6) of the FOI Act extends the standard statutory 30‑day time limit for processing requests by another 30 calendar days. Accordingly, this will give the department 60 calendar days within which to notify you of its decision on access to the documents.
Kind regards,
Freedom of Information Team
Email [Department of Agriculture and Water Resources request email]
Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment
18 Marcus Clarke Street, Canberra ACT 2601 Australia
GPO Box 858 Canberra ACT 2601 Australia
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