ONE NATIONAL CIRCUIT
BARTON
FOI
FOI/2021/074
Ms Eleanor Davey
By email: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxx.xxx.xx Dear Ms Davey
I refer to your email of 11 May 2021, in which you made a new request to the Department of
the Prime Minister and Cabinet (the
Department) under the
Freedom of Information Act
1982 (the
FOI Act), in the following terms:
Correspondence and/or records of conversations with the Prime Minister’s Office,
held by the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, that reference a decision
to remove children and families from the Regional Processing Centre in Papua New
Guinea, limited to documents created during a two week period preceding initial
media reports of the removal of children and families from the Regional Processing
Centre in Papua New Guinea (i.e. 6 June 2013 to 20 June 2013).
Authorised decision-maker The authorised decision-maker for your request is Mr Michael Burke, Assistant Secretary,
Home Affairs Branch.
Notice of practical refusal reason
Section 24(1) of the FOI Act provides that a request to an agency may be refused if the
decision maker is satisfied that a practical refusal reason (as set out in section 24AA of the
FOI Act) exists in relation to the request.
I write to advise you that the decision-maker has reviewed your request and considers that a
practical refusal reason (as set out in section 24AA of the FOI Act) exists in relation to the
request. This is on the basis that the work involved in processing your request, in its current
form, would substantially and unreasonably divert the resources of the Department from its
other operations. This constitutes a ‘practical refusal reason’ under section 24AA of the FOI
Act. On this basis, the decision maker intends to refuse access to the documents you have
requested.
Postal Address: PO Box 6500, CANBERRA ACT 2600
Telephone: +61 2 6271 5849 Fax: +61 2 6271 5776 www.pmc.gov.au ABN: 18 108 001 191
link to page 2 link to page 2
Section 24AB(9) of the FOI Act provides that the Department is only required to undertake
the consultation once. However, before the decision maker makes a final decision to refuse
the request for a practical refusal reason, the decision-maker has decided to provide you with
a further opportunity to revise your request under section 24AB of the FOI Act. Accordingly,
you have 14 days to respond to this notice in one of the ways set out below.
Reasons for intention to refuse your request
In deciding if a practical refusal reason exists, an agency must have regard to the resources
required to perform the following activities specified in section 24AA(2) of the FOI Act:
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• identifying, locating or collating documents within the filing system of the agency;
• examining the documents;
• deciding whether to grant, refuse or defer access;
• consulting with other parties;
• redacting exempt material from the documents;
• making copies of documents;
• notifying an interim or final decision to the applicant.
Other matters may be relevant in deciding if a practical refusal reason exists such as the
staffing resources available to an agency for FOI processing, whether the processing can only
be undertaken by one or more specialist officers in an agency who have competing
responsibilities, the impact that processing may have on other work in an agency including
FOI processing, and whether there is a significant public interest in the documents requested.
2 Preliminary document searches undertaken to date have identified over 623 documents
potentially within scope of your request.
Before the decision-maker can make a decision regarding any disclosure of documents, these
documents would need to be carefully examined and manually reviewed for relevance to your
request. This is because your request for documents from 6 June 2013 to 20 June 2013
requires the Department to undertake searches on document storage systems, including some
repositories with limited search functionality in identifying documents using specific date
parameters.
For the 623 documents identified to date, the process of reviewing for relevance would
require, at a minimum, opening the relevant document, reading the document, extracting the
document if relevant to the request, and closing the document. It is not known how many of
these documents have other documents embedded in them (for example, attachments to
emails), nor how many of these documents may be duplicates.
The decision-maker has formed the view that, in order to process your FOI request, the task of
thoroughly examining the material identified to date, firstly to confirm whether the material is
within the scope of the FOI request and, secondly, to decide whether that material should be
released, will be unreasonably time consuming. Documents would then have to be checked,
possible redactions made, a schedule of documents prepared and a decision letter written,
which would also add to the time required to process your request.
It is also likely that any documents that may ultimately be identified as within the scope of
your request would require consultation with a range of third parties. Based on a conservative
1 ‘Guidelines issued by the Australian Information Commissioner under s 93A of the
Freedom of Information
Act 1982’, Part 3 – Processing and Deciding on Requests for Access (Version 1.6, January 2018), [3.116].
2 Ibid, [3.117].
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estimate of one page per document for 623 electronic documents, it is estimated that it would
involve over 85 hours to process your request. The actual time involved to process your
request would likely be significantly higher, as it is most likely that each electronic document
is comprised of a number of pages.
The Department acknowledges that the processing of requests for access to documents is a
legitimate part of each agency’s functions, and that FOI requests may require reallocation of
resources within an agency. However, the Department could not reasonably divert sufficient
resources to process this request. In reaching this view, the Department has had regard to the
public interest in access to information held by the Department but considers the public
interest in access is outweighed by the competing public interest in the ability of the
Department to undertake its ordinary functions without substantial impairment, including the
processing of other FOI requests.
For the reasons given above, the decision maker considers that processing your request in its
current form would be a substantial and unreasonable diversion of the Department’s resources
from its other operations.
Request consultation process
You now have an opportunity to revise your request to enable it to proceed. Revising your
request can mean narrowing the scope of the request to make it more manageable or
explaining in more detail the specific documents you wish to access. We will assess whether
any revised request has removed the practical refusal reason.
You may wish to consider revising your FOI request by, for example, limiting your request to
a particular type of document.
No guarantee of access
Please be aware that even if you revise your FOI request to enable it to be processed, there is
still no guarantee that documents will ultimately be released. That is a matter for the
decision-maker to decide in the usual manner after examining the relevant documents. The
issue we are addressing at the moment is whether your FOI request can be processed – not
what the eventual outcome may be if it is processed.
Action required
Section 24AB of the FOI Act provides that you must do one of the following, in writing,
within the next 14 days:
• revise your FOI request;
• indicate that you do not wish to revise it; or
• withdraw the FOI request.
If you do
not do one of the above within the next 14 days, your FOI request will be taken to
have been withdrawn. If you were to revise your FOI request in a way that adequately
addresses the above concerns and makes it manageable, the Department will recommence
processing it.
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Calculation of 30 day period
Please note that the time taken to consult with you regarding the scope of your FOI request is
not taken into account for the purposes of calculating the 30 day period during which the
Department is required to take all reasonable steps to process your FOI request.
Should you wish to discuss your request, please contact the Department’s FOI and Privacy
Section on (02) 6271 5849, or by email t
o xxx@xxx.xxx.xx, quoting reference number
FOI/2021/074.
Yours sincerely
Andra Eisenberg
A/g Senior Adviser
FOI and Privacy Section
2 June 2021
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