You have contacted the Freedom of Information (FOI) inbox at the
Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (the department).

This email address is for requests to access documents under the Freedom
of Information Act 1982. The department cannot provide you with the
records of other government agencies. If you are seeking access to records
from another agency, you can search for their website on [1]the Australian
Government directory.

If you have written to the department to submit an FOI request or
application for internal review of an FOI decision, please consider this
email to be an acknowledgement of its receipt. We will contact you to
provide more information about the processing of your FOI request within
14 days of its receipt.

The FOI team of the department is unable to respond to non-FOI related
enquiries sent to this email address. If you have a non-FOI related
enquiry, refer to [2]the department's list of contacts.

For more information about how to make a valid FOI request to the
department, please visit [3]Freedom of Information.

FOI team

Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet

______________________________________________________________________ 
IMPORTANT: This message, and any attachments to it, contains information 
that is confidential and may also be the subject of legal professional or 
other privilege. If you are not the intended recipient of this message,
you 
must not review, copy, disseminate or disclose its contents to any other 
party or take action in reliance of any material contained within it. If
you 
have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately
by 
return email informing them of the mistake and delete all copies of the 
message from your computer system. 
______________________________________________________________________

References

Visible links
1. https://www.directory.gov.au/
2. https://www.pmc.gov.au/contact-us
3. https://www.pmc.gov.au/foi

OFFICIAL

Reference: 2025/345 

Dear Mr Pietsch

Thank you for your email of 10 December 2025 in which you made a request
under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (the FOI Act) to the Department
of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (the Department).  You set out the
terms of the request as follows:

Under the Freedom of Information Act 1982, I request access to:

1. Any briefs, submissions, talking points, issues notes or options papers
prepared by the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet between 1
January 2022 and 31 December 2024 where the text of the document contains
both of the words “NDIS” and “AUKUS”.

2. Any emails (including attachments) sent to or from SES Band 1 and Band
2 officers in PM&C’s Fiscal, Social Policy, National Security or Cabinet
Divisions between 1 January 2022 and 31 December 2024 where the body of
the email or any attachment contains both of the words “NDIS” and “AUKUS”.

For the purposes of this request:

- I am happy for you to limit your search in item 2 to:
- SES officers reporting to the Deputy Secretary responsible for Fiscal /
Social Policy, and
- SES officers reporting to the Deputy Secretary responsible for National
Security / AUKUS.
- I am not seeking duplicate copies of the same document, purely
administrative emails (e.g. calendar invites), or drafts that differ only
in trivial formatting.

If you consider that processing this request in full would involve a
substantial and unreasonable diversion of resources, I ask that you first
provide me with a practical refusal consultation and, if necessary, a
schedule of documents or search results (e.g. keyword hit list) so I can
further narrow the scope.

Timeframe for receiving your decision and request for extension of time

The 30 day statutory period for processing your request commenced from the
day after the Department received your request. A decision is therefore
due from us by 9 January 2026. We note that the processing time overlaps
with the departmental shutdown period between Christmas and New Year’s
Day. In light of this, we would like to seek your agreement to a 30 day
extension under section 15AA of the FOI Act.  This would change the
decision due date to 9 February 2026. Please be assured that we would
endeavour to notify you of the decision prior to this extended date if
possible

We would be grateful if you could please confirm your agreement to the
extension of time by replying to this email by 17 December 2025.

Exclusion of non-SES staff names and contact details
It is the Department’s policy to delete from documents:

·         Any person’s signature.

·         Names and contact details of Australian Public Service officers
who are not Senior Executive Service (SES) officers.

·         Mobile or direct numbers of SES officers.

·         Names and contact details of Ministerial staff at a level below
Chief of Staff.

If you disagree with this policy and want access to this information
please let us know at [1][DPMC request email]. Otherwise this type of
information will be deleted as irrelevant under section 22 of the FOI Act.
SES officer details are considered within scope and release will be
considered in accordance with the FOI Act.

Charges

Agencies may decide that an applicant is liable to pay a charge in respect
of a request for access to documents. If the Department decides that you
are liable to pay a charge, we will send you a preliminary assessment of
the charge as soon as possible. 

Publication of documents

Please note that information released under the FOI Act may later be
published online on our disclosure log at
[2]https://www.pmc.gov.au/government/depart...,
subject to certain exceptions. 

If you think you might wish to raise any objections to the publication of
your requested document, which may be released to you, please contact us
by email at [3][DPMC request email].  If you do wish to object to the
publication of information, you would need to set out your reasons.

Further information on FOI processing can be found at the website of the
Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at
[4]https://www.oaic.gov.au/freedom-of-infor...

Yours sincerely

FOI Coordinator | FOI Section

Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet

p. (02) 6271 5849

e. [5][email address]  w. [6]pmc.gov.au 

[7]https://platform-s3-buckets-publicfiles-...

[8]http://url5193.checkbox.ai/wf/open?upn=u...

______________________________________________________________________ 
IMPORTANT: This message, and any attachments to it, contains information 
that is confidential and may also be the subject of legal professional or 
other privilege. If you are not the intended recipient of this message,
you 
must not review, copy, disseminate or disclose its contents to any other 
party or take action in reliance of any material contained within it. If
you 
have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately
by 
return email informing them of the mistake and delete all copies of the 
message from your computer system. 
______________________________________________________________________

References

Visible links
1. mailto:[DPMC request email]
2. https://www.pmc.gov.au/about-us/accounta...
3. mailto:[DPMC request email]
4. https://www.oaic.gov.au/freedom-of-infor...
5. mailto:[email address]
6. https://pmc.gov.au/

You have contacted the Freedom of Information (FOI) inbox at the
Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (the department).

This email address is for requests to access documents under the Freedom
of Information Act 1982. The department cannot provide you with the
records of other government agencies. If you are seeking access to records
from another agency, you can search for their website on [1]the Australian
Government directory.

If you have written to the department to submit an FOI request or
application for internal review of an FOI decision, please consider this
email to be an acknowledgement of its receipt. We will contact you to
provide more information about the processing of your FOI request within
14 days of its receipt.

The FOI team of the department is unable to respond to non-FOI related
enquiries sent to this email address. If you have a non-FOI related
enquiry, refer to [2]the department's list of contacts.

For more information about how to make a valid FOI request to the
department, please visit [3]Freedom of Information.

FOI team

Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet

______________________________________________________________________ 
IMPORTANT: This message, and any attachments to it, contains information 
that is confidential and may also be the subject of legal professional or 
other privilege. If you are not the intended recipient of this message,
you 
must not review, copy, disseminate or disclose its contents to any other 
party or take action in reliance of any material contained within it. If
you 
have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately
by 
return email informing them of the mistake and delete all copies of the 
message from your computer system. 
______________________________________________________________________

References

Visible links
1. https://www.directory.gov.au/
2. https://www.pmc.gov.au/contact-us
3. https://www.pmc.gov.au/foi

OFFICIAL
Dear Mr Pietsch

Thank you for agreeing to the extension of time for processing your FOI request, as well as your offer to clarify the terms of your request.

Given the broad scope of your request, we anticipate there will be a wide range of documents that mention both AUKUS and NDIS in unrelated ways. For example, both AUKUS and the NDIS are mentioned in the PM&C corporate-plan-2025-2026 but in separate parts, reflecting they are general priorities for government.

To ensure we accurately identify the documents, we kindly request that you provide more specific details about the particular information or documents you wish to access. This additional information will help us set clear parameters for the request, allowing departmental officers to efficiently identify and search the relevant systems for the documents you are seeking.

Please provide any clarification for the terms of your request by 5 January 2026.

Kind regards,

Adviser
FOI Section | Legal Policy Branch
Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet
p. (02) 6271 5849 
We work on Ngunnawal Country

The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (PM&C) would like to acknowledge
the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and their continuing spiritual, social and cultural relationship with the land, waters, skies and community. We pay our respects to their Elders past and present, and to their community leaders, and extend
that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

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