Ref: LEX-22229
Ms Eleanor Ryan
Via email: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxx.xxx.xx
Dear Ms Ryan
Your Freedom of Information request – consultation
I refer to your request, received by the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment
(
department) on 14 March 2021 for access under the
Freedom of Information Act 1982 (
FOI
Act) to the following documents:
‘copies of the applications made to protect Mount Panorama/Wahluu under sections 9
and 10 of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act.’
Your request involves significant resources for the department
Due to the amount of work involved for the department, under sections 24AA(1)(a)(i), 24 and
24AA(2) of the FOI Act, the department intends to refuse your FOI request as a 'practical refusal
reason' exists. Under the Act, the practical refusal reason is that processing your request 'would
substantially and unreasonably divert the resources' of this agency.
To process your request the department would have to do extensive searches to find and
process the documents you asked for. Preliminary searches indicate that the department may
hold more than 48 documents, totalling over 1200 pages. I estimate that it would take over 69
hours to process your request.
The documents identified additionally contain a number of pages detailing confidential and
culturally sensitive information which require extensive third party consultation prior to a
decision being made under the FOI Act.
If you decide not to make any revisions to your request, the department may refuse your FOI
request as a ‘practical refusal reason’ exists.
How to send us a ‘revised request’
Before a final decision is made on your request, you can submit a revised request.
Within the next 14 days (consultation period) you must do one of the following in writing:
withdraw the request;
make a revised request; or
tell us that you do not want to revise your request.
T +61 2 6272 3933
18 Marcus Clarke Street
GPO Box 858
awe.gov.au
F +61 2 6272 5161
Canberra City ACT 2601
Canberra ACT 2601
ABN 34 190 894 983
If you do not contact us during the consultation period, your request will be taken as having
been withdrawn.
If you would like to make a revised request, you could consider:
distinguishing the type of documents you are seeking or could exclude (e.g.
Archaeological reports, Ethnographic reports, correspondence);
adding a short and specific timeframe for which you are seeking the documents for; and
seeking to exclude culturally sensitive/ confidentiality information.
Contact officer
During the consultation period, you are welcome to contact the department to ask for help in
revising your request. The contact officer’s details are as follows:
Eben
Legal Officer
xxx@xxx.xxx.xx
Further assistance
If you have any questions, please email xxx@xxx.xxx.xx.
Yours sincerely
James Barker
Assistant Secretary
Heritage Branch, Heritage, Reef & Wildlife Trade Division
31 March 2021
2