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Our Ref: EDRM051-1925127821-1559
Mr Andrew Wil iams
By email to xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxx.xxx.xx
12 December 2022
Dear Mr Wil iams
Freedom of Information request
I refer to your request for access to documents of the Victorian Electoral Commission (VEC) made
under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (Vic) (FOI Act) and received on 1 December 2022.
You have requested access to:
Al emails, briefing notes, diary notes (electronic or written) and reports including but not limited
to the fol owing'
1. Departmental emails and diary notes (electronic and written) relating to the
establishment of the Drive Through Site in Melton and al other sites that were
examined and/or considered
2. Departmental reports and diary notes (electronic and written) relating to the
establishment of the previously mentioned site and al other sites that were examined
and/or considered
3. Al reports, diary notes (electronic and written), briefing notices, communication and
public releases relating to the previously mentioned site and al other sites that were
examined and/or considered
4. Al emails and diary notes (electronic and written) from and to the VEC from
Government departments, Candidates, Candidate representatives and political parties
for the previously mentioned site and al other sites that were examined and/or
considered.
Your request is not currently valid under s 17 of the FOI Act because:
You have not paid the application fee of $30.60.
Your request requires further clarification.
Paying the application fee
You need to pay an application fee of $30.60 for your FOI request to be valid.
To proceed with your request, please pay the prescribed fee by bank transfer. The bank details for
the deposit of the fee are as fol ows:
VEC Operating Bank Account
BSB: 033-222
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Account number: 103348
Reference: FOI WILLIAMS
If payment of the fee would cause hardship to you, please explain the reasons in writing and
provide any evidence to support your claim within 21 days of the date of this letter. We wil then
make a decision about whether your hardship claim is accepted or not and inform you of the
outcome along with any applicable review rights.
Clarifying your request
Your request needs to provide enough information about the documents to enable us to identify
them. If a request is ambiguous or unclear, it does not comply with s 17(2) of the FOI Act and wil
not be processed.
It is my view that your request does not provide sufficient information for me to identify the
documents you seek. Further clarification is needed before I can progress your request.
Contextual information regarding your request
Before I seek clarification on some of the aspects of your request, please take note of the fol owing
considerations:
The VEC is an independent statutory body established under the Electoral Act 2002 (Vic)
and is not a Department of the Victorian Government. The VEC cannot release the
documents of Victorian Government Departments or other agencies which are not in its
actual or constructive possession.
It was the VEC’s decision to establish a drive-through voting centre in Melton West.
Al media releases are publicly available on the VEC website – Media centre | Victorian
Electoral Commission (vec.vic.gov.au).
Aspects of your request that require clarification
To ensure that there is no confusion in interpreting the terms of your request, could you please
clarify what you mean for the fol owing points:
The introductory sentence
a) When you refer to “al emails, briefing notes, diary notes… and reports” in your introductory
sentence, the intended subject matter of the documents that you are seeking is not clear.
Could you please clarify what you are seeking emails, briefing notes, diary notes and
reports about?
b) When you say “including but not limited to the fol owing”, this indicates that items 1-4 are
il ustrative and not exhaustive terms of your request. Could you please clarify if you intend
to only seek access to documents relating to the terms in items 1-4?
c) When you refer to “briefing notes”, it is not clear who the authors of these notes or their
recipients would be. Could you please clarify to whom and by whom you are seeking
briefing notes for?
Terms used throughout the request
d) When you refer to “diary notes”, it is not clear whose diary notes you are seeking or what
the scope of a diary note includes. Diary notes could be interpreted to encapsulate such
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things as notes made in online calendars, appointment/meeting invitations, or even meeting
minutes. Could you please clarify whose diary notes you are seeking and what you believe
would constitute a diary note for the purposes of your request?
e) When you refer to “reports”, it is not clear who the authors of these reports, or their
recipients, would be. Could you please clarify whether you are seeking reports to particular
entities authored by the VEC?
f) When you refer to the “Drive Through Site in Melton” and the “previously mentioned site”,
could you please confirm that you mean the VEC’s drive-through voting centre in Melton
West which operated on 24, 25 and 26 November 2022?
g) When you refer to “al other sites that were examined and/or considered”, could you please
confirm whether you mean any other sites that were considered as drive-through voting
centres by the VEC?
Items 1 and 2
h) When you refer to “Departmental [documents]” in items 1 and 2, it is not clear whether you
refer to documents of the VEC or of Victorian Government Departments. Could you please
clarify what you mean by “Departmental”?
i) Given that item 1 already refers to “diary notes”, it is not clear whether you intend for the
reference to “diary notes” in item 2 to mean something different or if you intend for item 2 to
be requesting “reports” only. Could you please clarify whether you are requesting distinct
documents in item 2 and, if so, what?
Item 3
j) Given that items 1 and 2 already request “diary notes” and “reports” respectively, it is not
clear whether you intend for the references to “diary notes” and “reports” in item 3 to mean
something different. Could you please clarify whether you are requesting distinct
documents in item 3 and, if so, what?
k) When you refer to “briefing notices” in item 3, it is not clear whether you intend for this type
of document to be distinct from “briefing notes” or if this is a mistake. Could you please
confirm what you mean by “briefing notices”?
l) When you refer to “al … communication” in item 3, it is not clear what type of documents
you are seeking and who the authors of these documents, or their recipients, you could be
referring to. Could you please confirm what you mean by “communication”?
m) When you refer to “al … public releases” in item 3, it is not clear whether this relates only to
formal media releases published by the VEC. Could you please confirm what you mean by
“public releases”? As I mentioned in the contextual information above, al media releases
are available on the VEC website.
Item 4
n) When you refer to “al emails and diary notes from and to the VEC from Government
departments, Candidates, Candidate representatives and political parties” in item 4, it is not
clear whether you intend to request al relevant emails and diary notes sent between (either
to or from) the VEC and the entities listed. Could you please confirm what you mean by
“from and to the VEC from [the listed entities]”?
o) When you say “for the previously mentioned site and al other sites…” in item 4, it is not
clear whether you intend this to mean “relating to the previously mentioned site and al
other sites…” in line with the wording you use in items 1-3. Could you please confirm what
you mean by “for the previously mentioned site…”?
p) When you refer to “Government departments” in item 4, it is not clear whether this is limited
to Departments of the Victorian Government or if it includes Departments of the
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Commonwealth and Departments of other State Governments. Could you please confirm
what you mean by “Government departments”?
q) When you refer to “diary notes” in item 4, it is not clear what type of document you might be
intending as diary notes are not documents that are typically sent to or from the VEC. Could
you please confirm what you mean by “diary notes” in item 4?
Excluding documents or information you don’t need
Could you also indicate whether you require:
r) Access to the documents in full or in part?
o Please note that if you are requesting access to documents in full, you will not
receive access to any part of the document if it contains material that is exempt or
would reasonably be regarded as irrelevant under the FOI Act. Partial access may
allow you to access documents with any exempt or irrelevant material redacted.
s) Access to draft documents?
t) Access to duplicate documents?
u) Commercial information relating to third parties?
v) Any information relating to the personal affairs of any person which, under s 33(9) of the
FOI Act includes:
information that identifies any person or their address or location; or
information from which a person’s identity, address or location can reasonably be
determined?
Next steps
I invite you to consult with the VEC to amend or clarify your request so that it is in a form that
complies with s 17 of the FOI Act and provides the information necessary to enable me to identify
the documents sought. Alternatively, you can make an amended written request addressing the
matters above.
Until your request is made in the way required by s 17 of the FOI Act, it cannot be processed and
the 30-day time period within which a decision must be made on your request will not commence.
If you do not contact us to consult on your request, or send an amended request, and also don’t
pay the application fee, within 21 days of the date of this letter, I may close your request without
processing it.
I look forward to hearing from you in relation to the above matters. If you have any questions
relating to this letter, please contact Nicholas Clohesy, Information Release Advisor by email at
xxx@xxx.xxx.xxx.xx.
Yours sincerely
Anika Clynick
Freedom of Information Officer
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