Briefs Detailing Potential Privatisation Oppteruntiies
Dear Department of Finance,
This is a Freedom of Information request, for the purposes of the Freedom of Information Act 1982.
For context, I refer to a comment made by the former Deputy Secretary of the Department of Finance, Stephen Bartos, made to the ABC's Four Courners program in the episode titled 'Post Mortem'. The quote is that: "I used to work in the Department of Finance, and it is pretty common knowledge that the Finance Minister always gets a brief about things that can potentially be sold, and just by their very nature, Government Business Enterprises always are in the list because they're easy to sell."
I seek access to any brief, produced by the Department of Finance, for Minister Gallagher, the Minister of Finance, produced since 23 May 2022 onwards until today, of potential privatisation.
Please exclude duplicates and documents already publicly released, including media releases, reports, articles and statements to the media.
Please limit emails to the final message in the chain as long as previous messages are captured.
I agree to having the names and direct contact details of non-senior staff removed, however I request that redactions do not include non-personally identifying information. For example, please leave the domain and job titles when redacting email addresses or signature blocks on emails.
I preemptively agree to requests for third party consultation if necessary, but would prefer that my information about my identity is not shared with those consulted.’
Yours faithfully,
Glenn Hamiltonshire
Thank you for your email, which has been forwarded to the Department’s FOI
Team for their consideration. A member of the FOI Team will respond to
your email in the next couple of days.
Kind regards
FOI Coordinator
OFFICIAL
Dear Glenn
Freedom of Information Request – FOI 25-26/095
Thank you for your email to the Department of Finance (Finance) requesting
access to the following documents under the Freedom of Information Act
1982 (FOI Act):
any brief, produced by the Department of Finance, for
Minister Gallagher, the Minister of Finance, produced since 23 May 2022
onwards until today, of potential privatisation.
We have understood your request to be for any formal briefs produced in
relation to potential privatisation. Please let us know if our
understanding is incorrect.
General FOI matters
Your request was received by Finance on 28 October 2025. The statutory
period for processing your request commences from the day after Finance
received your request and a decision is due on 27 November 2025.
The processing period may be extended with your written agreement, if we
need to consult third parties, impose a charge or for other reasons. We
will advise you if this happens.
Liability to pay a charge
You will be notified of any charges in relation to your request as soon as
possible, before we process any requested documents or impose a final
charge.
Publication
As required by the FOI Act, any documents provided to you under the FOI
Act will be published on our [1]disclosure log unless an exception
applies. Documents will be published within the applicable statutory
timeframe set out by the FOI Act.
Policy to exclude junior officer contact details, signatures and mobile
phone numbers
Finance has adopted a policy to generally exclude from any documents
released under FOI, the names and contact details of junior staff (non-SES
officers) and staff employed under the Members of Parliament (Staff) Act
1984 (senior adviser level and below). Finance has also adopted a policy
to exclude signatures and mobile phone numbers from any documents released
under FOI (unless publicly available). Finance’s preference is to reach
agreement with FOI applicants to exclude these details from the scope of
the request. Where there is no objection, the names and contact details of
junior officers, as well as any signatures and mobile phone numbers
appearing in identified documents, will be redacted under section 22 of
the FOI Act on the basis that these details are irrelevant to the request.
Thank you for agreeing to this information being excluded from the scope
of your request.
Please contact the FOI Team if you wish to discuss your request.
Kind regards,
FOI Team
FOI Officer | Legal and Assurance Branch
Business Enabling Services
Department of Finance
A: One Canberra Avenue, Forrest ACT 2603
References
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