Whether reasonable steps taken to find documents - s 24A
I have refused your request for documents under s 24A of the FOI Act on the basis
that all reasonable steps have been taken to find the documents and no documents
exist.
Section 24A provides as follows:
(1) An Agency or Minister may refuse a request for access to a document if:
(a) all reasonable steps have been taken to find the document; and
(b) the agency or Minister is satisfied that the document:
(i) is in the agency’s or Minister’s possession but cannot be found; or
(ii) does not exist
Section 24A requires that an agency take ‘all reasonable steps’ to find a requested
document before refusing access to it on the basis that it cannot be found or does not
exist.
I have considered the search and retrieval efforts in processing your FOI request. This
involved officers in the Legal Services team reviewing the documents related to file
FOIREQ22/00253 on the OAIC’s case management system Resolve.
Based on the searches conducted, I am satisfied that all reasonable steps have been
taken to find the documents in scope of your FOI request and that no documents exist
which contain “third party consultations in OAIC ref: FOIREQ22/00253” as per your FOI
request.
We note that although there are no documents containing third party consultations
on the Resolve file for FOIREQ22/00253, there are documents identifying the need for
third party consultation and draft documents prepared for the purpose of third party
consultation. Documents giving rise to third party consultation were identified within
the scope of FOIREQ22/00253, and accordingly the timeframe for processing that
request was extended under s 15(6) of the FOI Act. However, further review and
consideration of the documents caused the OAIC to come to the view that the work
involved in processing FOIREQ22/00253 would have substantially and unreasonably
diverted the resources of the OAIC from its other operations due to the substantial
number of documents which fell within the scope of FOIREQ22/00253.
A request consultation notice was then sent to you under s 24AB of the FOI Act, and as
we did not receive a response to this notice FOIREQ22/00253 was taken to be
withdrawn and third party consultation was no longer necessary.
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Conclusion
Based on the advice of the Legal Services team officer who conducted the searches,
the terms of your request, and searches undertaken, I am satisfied that all
reasonable steps have been taken to find documents that fall within the scope of
your request and that documents containing third party consultations in
FOIREQ22/00253 do not exist.
Therefore, I refuse your request for access to documents under s 24A of the FOI Act on
the basis that no documents exist.
Please see the following page for information about your review rights.
Yours sincerely
Molly Cooke
Lawyer
Legal Services
25 November 2022
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If you disagree with my decision
Internal Review
You have the right to apply for an internal review of my decision under Part VI of the
FOI Act. An internal review will be conducted, to the extent possible, by an officer of
the OAIC who was not involved in or consulted in the making of my decision. If you
wish to apply for an internal review, you must do so in writing within 30 days. There
is no application fee for internal review.
If you wish to apply for an internal review, please mark your application for the
attention of the FOI Coordinator and state the grounds on which you consider that
my decision should be reviewed.
Applications for internal reviews can be submitted to:
Office of the Australian Information Commissioner
GPO Box 5218
SYDNEY NSW 2001
Alternatively, you can submit your application by email to xxx@xxxx.xxx.xx, or by fax
on 02 9284 9666.
Further Review
You have the right to seek review of this decision by the Information Commissioner
and the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT).
You may apply to the Information Commissioner for a review of my decision (IC
review). If you wish to apply for IC review, you must do so in writing within 60 days.
Your application must provide an address (which can be an email address or fax
number) that we can send notices to, and include a copy of this letter. A request for
IC review can be made in relation to my decision, or an internal review decision.
It is the Information Commissioner’s view that it will usually not be in the interests of
the administration of the FOI Act to conduct an IC review of a decision, or an internal
review decision, made by the agency that the Information Commissioner heads: the
OAIC. For this reason, if you make an application for IC review of my decision, and the
Information Commissioner is satisfied that in the interests of administration of the
Act it is desirable that my decision be considered by the AAT, the Information
Commissioner may decide not to undertake an IC review.
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Section 57A of the FOI Act provides that, before you can apply to the AAT for review
of an FOI decision, you must first have applied for IC review.
Applications for IC review can be submitted online at:
https://forms.business.gov.au/smartforms/servlet/SmartForm.html?formCode=ICR_
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Alternatively, you can submit your application to:
Office of the Australian Information Commissioner
GPO Box 5218
SYDNEY NSW 2001
Or by email to xxxxx@xxxx.xxx.xx, or by fax on 02 9284 9666.
Accessing your information
If you would like access to the information that we hold about you, please contact
xxxxx@xxxx.xxx.xx. More information is available on the Access our information
page on our website.
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