Our reference: FOI 22/23-0455
GPO Box 700
Canberra ACT 2601
1800 800 110
ndis.gov.au
25 November 2022
Oliver Lee
By email: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxx.xxx.xx
Dear Oliver Lee
Freedom of Information request — Request consultation process
Thank you for your correspondence of 6 September 2022, in which you requested access
under the
Freedom of Information Act 1982 (FOI Act) to documents held by the National
Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA).
Scope of your request
You have requested access to the following documents:
"...all ministerial briefings prepared for the Hon Bill Shorten since coming into office
this year."
Practical refusal
I am authorised to make decisions under section 23(1) of the FOI Act.
I am writing to advise that your request does not provide enough information about the
documents you are seeking access to, and in its current form is likely to result in a
substantial and unreasonable diversion of resources. This is called a ‘practical refusal
reason’ under section 24AA of the FOI Act.
On this basis, I intend to refuse your request. However, before I make a final decision, I am
writing to provide you with an opportunity to revise your request. This is called a ‘request
consultation process’ as set out under section 24AB of the FOI Act. You have 14 days to
respond to this notice in one of the ways set out below.
Why I intend to refuse your request
We have conducted preliminary searches of the NDIA’s systems, using all reasonable
search terms that could return documents relevant to your request. In addition, we have
consulted with relevant NDIA staff who could be expected to be able to identify documents
within the scope of the request, including staff who are knowledgeable about how to conduct
searches of the NDIA’s systems. Those searches indicate that the NDIA has more than
1,000 documents that may be relevant to your request. This outcome shows that the terms
of your request do not provide sufficient information to allow us to identify the specific
documents that you are seeking.
Request consultation process
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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 documents you wish to access. For example, by
providing more specific information about exactly what documents you are interested in, the
NDIA will be able to pinpoint the documents more quickly and avoid using excessive
resources to process documents you are not interested in.
To reduce the scope of your request, you might like to consider:
• The most recent Ministerial Brief prior to your FOI request.
You have 14 days from the date you receive this letter to contact me and do one of the
following:
a. withdraw your request
b. make a revised request
c. indicate that you do not wish to revise the request.
During this period, you are welcome to seek assistance to revise your request. If you revise
your request in a way that adequately addresses the practical refusal reason outlined above,
we will recommence processing it.
Please note that the time taken to consult with you regarding the scope of your request is not
taken into account for the purposes of the timeframe for processing your request.
You can contact me by email a
t xxx@xxxx.xxx.xx. Alternatively, you can reply in writing to the following address:
Freedom of Information Section
Parliamentary, Ministerial & FOI Branch
Government Division
National Disability Insurance Agency
GPO Box 700
CANBERRA ACT 2601
If you do not contact me within this period, that is by
9 December 2022, your FOI request
will be taken to have been withdrawn under subsection 24AB(7) and will not be dealt with
any further.
Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.
Yours sincerely
Kylie Acting Assistant Director FOI - Strategy
Parliamentary, Ministerial & FOI Branch
Government Division
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