800,000+ jobs created since July 2016......Really ?
Dear Attorney-General's Department,
Sen Brandis,
In parliament question time yesterday (NOV 14th, 2017) you detailed that your government had created over 800,000 jobs since the last election in July 2016.
Can you advise in which countries these actual / real jobs created in, since the AUS unemployment rate has been steady for many many months at around 5.5% ?
Where these jobs created in India, Bangladesh, The Philippines and other such countries where all Australian companies now choose obscene profits over producing quality goods & services ?
Were these jobs all given to your infatuation with your Visa types such as 457’s, 400’s, etc…..
Yours faithfully,
Vito Guzzardi
UNCLASSIFIED
Good morning,
I am writing in response to your email of 15 November 2017 to the Freedom of Information and Parliamentary Section of the Attorney-General’s Department (the department).
The Commonwealth Freedom of Information Act 1982 (FOI Act) provides a scheme for individuals to request access to documents held by Australian Government agencies. The FOI Act requires that a request be for access to a document or documents, and not for information or for advice generally.
The FOI Guidelines issued by the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner state at paragraph 3.180 that the FOI Act provides a scheme for requests to be made for existing documents, rather than for information, and that the FOI Act does not require an agency to create new documents containing the information that is sought. While we consider that your request does not satisfy the requirements of a valid FOI request, it is open to you to make an FOI request seeking access to specific documents in future.
If you wish to make an FOI request about a Commonwealth matter to this department, you will need to request access to particular documents and send your request to the department’s FOI mailbox at [AGD request email]. Your request must:
• be in writing (email is sufficient)
• state that the request is an application for the purposes of the FOI Act
• describe the documents you seek in enough detail to allow the decision-maker to identify and find them, and
• provide an address for reply.
I hope this information is of assistance to you.
Courtney
Courtney W
Freedom of Information and Parliamentary Section Strategy and Delivery Division | Attorney-General’s Department
T: (02) 6141 6666 | E: [AGD request email]
Dear FOI Requests / Courtney,
Further advise what the AGD email address is so I can reply once again.
Yours sincerely,
Vito Guzzardi
UNCLASSIFIED
Good afternoon
I refer to your email below.
Please be advised that the email address for the FOI unit in the Attorney General's Department is [AGD request email]
Yours sincerely
FOI Case Manager
Freedom of Information and Parliamentary Section Strategy and Delivery Division | Attorney-General’s Department
T: (02) 6141 6666 | E: [AGD request email]
Simon Victory left an annotation ()
Hi Verity Pane, correct me if I am wrong… you sort of touch on this in your second paragraph but I'm under the impression that s17 is purely for information in non-document format (e.g. an internal intranet site or code) so that it can be transformed into document form. It is not a mechanism to force the interpretation of held information into a different document for the request.
This request rather asks for information that may not be in the format explicitly asked. Wouldn’t the FOI officer be correct in their assessment and that this request be marked as “Information not held”?
Do you have many cases on RtK where they have actually produced new documents?
Verity Pane left an annotation ()
The claim by this agency that “and that the FOI Act does not require an agency to create new documents containing the information that is sought” is misleading - that is in fact the purpose of s 17 of the Act, to create a new document from information held by the agency, in specific circumstances.
It always surprises me how often agency FOI staff make completely misleading claims like this, in these sort of fob off responses. It’s simply put, very poor behaviour. Yes it is correct to say that the misnamed Freedom of Information Act is actually the (possible) Freedom of Documents Act, but with the caveat there are cases where an agency is required to compile information from existing records into a new document as specified by s 17.