(Collective) Shout, shout, let it all out!
Dear Classification Review Board,
This is a Freedom of Information Request for the purposes of the Freedom of Information Act 1982.
I seek access to any submissions, correspondents, or documents received and exchanged by the the Australian Classification Review Board from the organisation known as "Collective Shout", a registered charity which exists from time to time, identify by the ABN 30162159097.
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
Dear Classification Review Board,
Upon noting an error in my original request, I seek to clarify this request is to request for documents from 1 January 2009 onward.
My apologies for this overlooking.
Yours faithfully,
Glenn Hamiltonshire
OFFICIAL
OFFICIAL
Dear Glenn Hamiltonshire,
Thank you for your email of 17 August 2025 requesting access to documents
held by the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development,
Communications and the Arts (the Department) under the Freedom of
Information Act 1982 (FOI Act).
You have requested access to:
Access to submissions, correspondents, or documents received and exchanged
by the the Australian Classification Review Board from the organisation
known as "Collective Shout", a registered charity which exists from time
to time, identify by the ABN 30162159097.
Exclude duplicates and documents already publicly released, including
media releases, reports, articles and statements to the media.
Your request has been allocated the reference number FOI 26-061. Could you
please ensure that you quote this reference number in all future
correspondence with the Department.
Timeframes
The statutory due date for you to receive a decision on your request is 16
September 2025. This date may be extended in certain circumstances, and in
the event that this occurs, the Department will notify you. Where the due
date falls on a Saturday, Sunday or public holiday, the timeframe will
expire on the next working day.
Other information
Please note that the Department considers the following information
outside the scope of your request unless you specifically request it:
o personal information of third-party individuals; including public
servants below the SES level and all email addresses, signatures and
direct telephone numbers
o any duplicates and drafts of final versions of documents captured by
your request
o any correspondence sent directly to or from you.
The Department may impose a charge for the work involved in providing
access to the documents in accordance with the Freedom of Information
(Charges) Regulations. You will be notified separately if the Department
decides to impose a charge. There is no charge for documents that contain
your own personal information.
Where documents are released to you under the FOI Act in response to your
request, the Department must publish those documents on its FOI Disclosure
Log within 10 business days of their release to you, unless they contain
personal information or business affairs information that would be
unreasonable to publish. Further information regarding the Department’s
FOI Disclosure Log can be found [1]here.
Should you have any questions relating to your request, please do not
hesitate to contact the FOI Section via email to
[2][CRB request email]
Kind regards
FOI Coordinator
Freedom of Information Section • Enabling Services Division
P 02 6274 6294
E [3][email address]
GPO Box 594 Canberra, ACT 2601
Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development,
Communications, Sport and the Arts
CONNECTING AUSTRALIANS • ENRICHING COMMUNITIES • EMPOWERING REGIONS
[4]infrastructure.gov.au [5][IMG]
I would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of this land on
which we meet, work and live.
I recognise and respect their continuing connection to the land, waters
and communities.
I pay my respects to Elders past and present and to all Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islanders.
OFFICIAL
OFFICIAL
References
Visible links
1. https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/about-...
2. mailto:[CRB request email]
3. mailto:[email address]
4. http://www.infrastructure.gov.au/
5. http://www.infrastructure.gov.au/departm...
OFFICIAL
FOI would like to recall the message, "FOI 26-061 - Acknowledgement of Request [SEC=OFFICIAL]".
OFFICIAL
OFFICIAL
OFFICIAL
OFFICIAL
Dear Glenn Hamiltonshire,
Thank you for your email of 17 August 2025 requesting access to documents
held by the Classification Review Board (The Board) under the Freedom of
Information Act 1982 (FOI Act).
You have requested access to:
Access to submissions, correspondents, or documents received and exchanged
by the the Australian Classification Review Board from the organisation
known as "Collective Shout", a registered charity which exists from time
to time, identify by the ABN 30162159097.
Exclude duplicates and documents already publicly released, including
media releases, reports, articles and statements to the media.
Your request has been allocated the reference number FOI 26-061. Could you
please ensure that you quote this reference number in all future
correspondence with the Board.
Timeframes
The statutory due date for you to receive a decision on your request is 16
September 2025. This date may be extended in certain circumstances, and in
the event that this occurs, the Board will notify you. Where the due date
falls on a Saturday, Sunday or public holiday, the timeframe will expire
on the next working day.
Other information
Please note that the Board considers the following information outside the
scope of your request unless you specifically request it:
o personal information of third-party individuals; including public
servants below the SES level and all email addresses, signatures and
direct telephone numbers
o any duplicates and drafts of final versions of documents captured by
your request
o any correspondence sent directly to or from you.
The Board may impose a charge for the work involved in providing access to
the documents in accordance with the Freedom of Information (Charges)
Regulations. You will be notified separately if the Department decides to
impose a charge. There is no charge for documents that contain your own
personal information.
Where documents are released to you under the FOI Act in response to your
request, the Board must publish those documents on its FOI Disclosure Log
within 10 business days of their release to you, unless they contain
personal information or business affairs information that would be
unreasonable to publish. Further information regarding the Board’s FOI
Disclosure Log can be found [1]here.
Should you have any questions relating to your request, please do not
hesitate to contact the FOI Section via email to
[2][CRB request email]
Kind regards
FOI Coordinator
Freedom of Information Section • Enabling Services Division
P 02 6274 6294
E [3][email address]
GPO Box 594 Canberra, ACT 2601
Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development,
Communications, Sport and the Arts
CONNECTING AUSTRALIANS • ENRICHING COMMUNITIES • EMPOWERING REGIONS
[4]infrastructure.gov.au [5][IMG]
I would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of this land on
which we meet, work and live.
I recognise and respect their continuing connection to the land, waters
and communities.
I pay my respects to Elders past and present and to all Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islanders.
OFFICIAL
OFFICIAL
OFFICIAL
References
Visible links
1. https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/about-...
2. mailto:[CRB request email]
3. mailto:[email address]
4. http://www.infrastructure.gov.au/
5. http://www.infrastructure.gov.au/departm...
OFFICIAL
OFFICIAL
Good morning Mr Hamiltonshire
I refer to your request for access to documents held by the Classification
Review Board (the Review Board) under the Freedom of Information Act 1982
(FOI Act).
Notification of Third-Party Consultation and Extension of Time
Your request captures documents which contain another individual’s
personal information and information concerning the business, commercial
or financial affairs or an organisation, or a person’s business or
profession affairs. Under section 27A and section 27 of the FOI Act, the
Review Board is required to consult with the affected person or
organisation before making a decision on access to those documents.
For this reason, the period for processing your request has been extended
by 30 days under section 15(6) of the FOI Act in order to allow the Review
Board time to consult with the relevant person or organisation. As such,
the statutory due date for your request is now 16 October 2025.
Kind regards
FOI Coordinator
Freedom of Information Section • Enabling Services Division
P 02 6136 8114
E [1][email address]
GPO Box 594 Canberra, ACT 2601
Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development,
Communications, Sport and the Arts
CONNECTING AUSTRALIANS • ENRICHING COMMUNITIES • EMPOWERING REGIONS
[2]infrastructure.gov.au [3][IMG]
I would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of this land on
which we meet, work and live.
I recognise and respect their continuing connection to the land, waters
and communities.
I pay my respects to Elders past and present and to all Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islanders.
OFFICIAL
OFFICIAL
References
Visible links
1. mailto:[email address]
2. http://www.infrastructure.gov.au/
3. http://www.infrastructure.gov.au/departm...
OFFICIAL
OFFICIAL
Good afternoon
I refer to your request below for access to documents under the Freedom of
Information Act 1982 (FOI Act).
Please find attached a decision in response to your request.
The documents to be released to you will be made available by Secure File
Transfer (SFT). However, we are unable to provide access via Right to Know
email addresses.
Please contact us to provide an alternative email address through which we
can provide you with access to our SFT system. Once you provide an email
address, you will receive an automated system email which will include
instructions on setting up your access.
Section 11C of the FOI Act requires publication of documents released
under the FOI Act on the Department’s FOI disclosure log, subject to
certain exceptions, including where publication of personal, business,
professional or commercial information would be unreasonable. The
documents for release will be published on the disclosure log within 10
working days of being released to you.
Kind regards
FOI Coordinator
Freedom of Information Section • Enabling Services Division
P 02 6136 8114
E [1][email address]
GPO Box 594 Canberra, ACT 2601
Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development,
Communications, Sport and the Arts
CONNECTING AUSTRALIANS • ENRICHING COMMUNITIES • EMPOWERING REGIONS
[2]infrastructure.gov.au [3][IMG]
I would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of this land on
which we meet, work and live.
I recognise and respect their continuing connection to the land, waters
and communities.
I pay my respects to Elders past and present and to all Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islanders.
OFFICIAL
OFFICIAL
Dear FOI,
Thank you for your reply to the FOI Request.
For the purposes of Secure File Transfer, my email is [email address] and I will briefly send an email to the department outlining my request for transfer. I will be ready for a reply to continue this process.
Yours sincerely,
Glenn Hamiltonshire
Glenn Hamiltonshire left an annotation ()
Apologies for the confusion. Following the collection of the files mentioned in the schedule, I reached out to one of the RtK admins to inquire about publicly uploading them. However, after inquiring, as the contents here include discussions of materials classified as R18+ and RC related material with some detail, the moderators have opted not to upload them to the RtK site.
I hope that is understandable for the others inquiring about these materials.
Ben (Right to Know) left an annotation ()
Hi all,
We actively advocate for the release of documents directly via Right to Know, and encourage anyone to make us aware of instances where they are being asked to access documents outside of Right to Know.
The Classification Board and Classification Review Board are the one exception. We have a ban on people requesting documents about MA 15+, R 18+, X 18+ or RC content. This is because, more often than not, the documents will contain material that is unlawful, harassing, defamatory, abusive, threatening, harmful, obscene, discriminatory or profane - all things against our House Rules.
I hope this helps!
Thanks,
Ben
Dan Lee left an annotation ()
Hi Ben
The correspondence referred to below was via another login that appears to have been deleted by RTK.
It refers to both of these pages.
Classification Board (CB)
https://www.righttoknow.org.au/body/clas...
Classification Review Board (CRB)
https://www.righttoknow.org.au/body/crb
In 2024, I contacted Right to Know, voicing my concern about this policy change. You replied explaining the "House Rules "behind the decision, unwillingness to reconsider and that you "…plan to work on a blog post in the New Year to set things out in more detail".
On 28 December 2024, you confirmed that you "…did reach out to their [the CB's] FOI team to get their view" when deciding the new policy, but denied changes were made at their request. In the absence of your promised blog post, I think it is useful for everyone to understand how this rule change has reduced FOI requests since its implementation in 2024.
https://www.righttoknow.org.au/body/clas...
Year v. No. of FOI requests
2025 – 2
2024 – 9
2023 - 26
It is unclear how many FOI requests you are removing for breaking the "House Rules", but it is happening.
On 19 May 2025, user "Naomi Doe" requested "Documents related to the classification of various Horror computer games" via RTK.
https://www.righttoknow.org.au/user/naom...
The page now shows, "Request has been removed",
presumably due to the inclusion of MA15+ content.
https://www.righttoknow.org.au/request/d...
Naomi Doe's FOI CB 25-379 was eventually posted here on 11 June 2025.
https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/about-...
Your "House Rule" against MA 15+, R 18+, X 18+ or RC content does not make sense when documents were not posted in the first place. Apologies if I have missed something, but I cannot find any example of this happening from 2015 to 2025 on either the CB or CRB pages.
May I suggest a compromise? Requests can be made via RTK on the understanding that released FOIs containing MA 15+, R 18+, X 18+ or RC content are not to be posted.
I understand that this goes against RTK's wishes to make all FOIs available on the site. However, the alternative is to see both the CB and CRB escape scrutiny.
Until recently, the Board would release complete versions of Refused Classification decisions through FOI or directly via e-mail. Such reports now receive many redactions. It makes no sense when complete CRB reports, including RC decisions, are posted on their own website.
https://www.classification.gov.au/about-...
It is odd to see RTK working in tandem with the Board to discourage FOI requests. I am asking you to reconsider this policy or open it up to debate.
Zack left an annotation ()
It seems like a significant amount of thought went into this policy. How was the data weighed to determine that this was the best approach?
It sounds incredibly difficult for a government organisation to be placed in a position where fulfilling an FOI request would mean distributing "unlawful material." How frequently does that specific scenario actually occur?
There appears to be a disconnect between strict RC classifications and the overwhelming need for disclosure in the public interest to inform ongoing debate.
Given that standards evolve quickly, just a short time ago, possessing a game like Left 4 Dead 2 was a $10,000 offense before the R18+ rating was introduced. How does the current policy ensure it isn't locking away information that will soon be considered standard public knowledge?
Dan Lee left an annotation ()
Hi Zack
The government would only be in a position of distributing "unlawful material" if it released the Refused Classification reports for certain books where they quoted the offending text.
An example would be this request.
https://www.righttoknow.org.au/request/d...
However, a description of why a film or game was Refused Classification is not illegal.
For the LEFT FOR DEAD 2 case that you mentioned.. At the time, the full CB report was released to anyone and was widely quoted by games journalists. The full CRB report is still hosted on the CB's website.
https://www.classification.gov.au/sites/...
Many other Refused Classification reports, The Human Centipede II, The Peaceful Pill Handbook, Tras El Cristal, etc., can also be found there in full.
https://www.classification.gov.au/about-...
Until late December 2022, the PDFs of all FOI requests were released on the Disclosure Log.
https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/about-...
These were the last six that could be downloaded.
5 December 2022 - FOI 23-070
8 September 2022 - CB 22-012
31 August 2022 - CB 22-014
17 August 2022 - FOI 22-185
11 August 2022 - FOI 22-227
7 July 2022 - CB 22-011
The change happened only on 19 December 2022 when FOI 23-067 was noted on the Disclosure Log, but no PDF was posted. Instead, they noted.
"These documents contain information classified as suitable for individuals over the age of 18 years. R 18+ material is restricted to adults as it contains content that is considered high in impact for viewers. This includes content that may be offensive to sections of the adult community. Therefore, please submit your request to foi@infrastructure.gov.au with proof of age, so we may consider your request."
The change was "coincidentally" made at the same time as their FOI requests had significantly increased; ironically, many came via RTK.
Now, all reports are posted this way and are withheld unless identification is provided.
On 18 November 2024, FOI CB 25-148 - Documents relating to the classification of R 18+ film 'The Substance', were noted on the disclosure log with the above request for age verification.
https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/about-...
The Board's own entry for the film in their database can be found here
https://www.classification.gov.au/titles...
Clicking the drop-down menu, "More information about the content of this film", reveals exactly why it was classified R18+. This overview is essentially a consolidated version of the full report.
The Board is happy to host this and RC reports with no redactions on its site.
I cannot agree with your statement that "It seems like a significant amount of thought went into this policy". Instead, RTK appears to have taken the Board's explanation at face value without knowing their ulterior motive for the change. The CB must be delighted with RTK's decision to curtail future FOIs.
This is not about stopping inappropriate content getting into the hands of under-18s. It is instead about creating friction and limiting the spread of information.
I hope RTK can review their FOI restricting policy now that they understand why the CB made the changes.
Ben (Right to Know) left an annotation ()
Thank you all for your passionate feedback. We've put up a blog post (https://www.righttoknow.org.au/blog) that provides a bit more detail on the reason for the policy change last year.
We have only hidden one request from the Classification Board, and one from the Classification Review Board (two total).
I personally reviewed each of the 4 documents mentioned in our blog post. Implementing a blanket ban is the best way for us to ensure that the material in question doesn't end up on our site, and doesn't have an unacceptable impact on the mental health and wellbeing of our team.
Nothing we have done prevents people from making a FOI request directly, and publishing that material somewhere else.
Dan Lee left an annotation ()
Hi Ben
Thanks for the reply.
I have made a comment on your blog post, which is probably the best place to debate the decision.
https://www.oaf.org.au/2025/11/11/balanc...
The fact that you have hidden only "…one request from the Classification Board, and one from the Classification Review Board (two total)" is because, since the December 2024 change, requests are simply not being made anymore.
Year v. No. of FOI requests
2025 – 2
2024 – 9
2023 - 26
Daniel left an annotation ()
FYI, I've raised this one to the admins because of the CRB's use of the "EFT" system. My personal view is that they should just provide the documents via email. In any case, can you please send the documents to the admins so that they can add them to the request page?