Employee information provided to ballot agents in Enterprise Agreement bargaining

James Smith made this Freedom of Information request to Australian Taxation Office as part of a batch sent to 42 authorities

This request has been closed to new correspondence from the public body. Contact us if you think it ought be re-opened.

The request was partially successful.

Dear Australian Taxation Office,

This is a request for information under the Freedom of Information Act.

I request the document(s) which describe the data provided to the external organisation(s) responsible for conducting the ballot(s) for all Enterprise Agreements put to staff for a vote.

The scope of this request is limited only to those ballots undertaken for enterprise agreements which were proposed to take effect after 30 June 2014.

The document shall describe the data given to the ballot agent. For example, employee name, employee identification number, employee email address, etc. I exclude the data for specific employees here; I am only after the 'meta-data'.

If it assists you to treat this as an administrative request for information I encourage you to do so. Otherwise, please consider this a formal FOI request.

Yours faithfully,

James Smith

FOI, Australian Taxation Office

 
Dear Mr Smith,
 
The ATO does not process FOI requests received via righttoknow.org.au.
Please send your FOI request direct to [1][ATO request email], or lodge via
paper form available at
[2]https://www.ato.gov.au/uploadedFiles/Con....
Alternatively, you can contact the ATO on 13 28 69 and ask for Freedom of
Information.
 
 
Regards,
 
FOI team
 
 

**********************************************************************
IMPORTANT
    The information transmitted is for the use of the intended
recipient only and may contain confidential and/or legally
privileged material. Any review, re-transmission, disclosure,
dissemination or other use of, or taking of any action in
reliance upon, this information by persons or entities other
than the intended recipient is prohibited and may result in
severe penalties. If you have received this e-mail in error
please notify the Privacy Hotline of the Australian Taxation
Office, telephone 1300 661 542 and delete all copies of this
transmission together with any attachments.
**********************************************************************

References

Visible links
1. mailto:[ATO request email]
2. https://www.ato.gov.au/uploadedFiles/Con...

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Dear Australian Taxation Office,

This request has been lodged in accordance with the FOI Act and the guidelines issued by the Office of the Australian Information Commission.

I cannot accept your refusal to process this request simply because it was also published on Right To Know.

Further, the ATO has not provided any detail of the legality of your decision to refuse this request.

I therefore respectfully request you continue to process my request, which was lodged via email to your nominated address, [email address], on 16 February 2017. Your statutory period to process my request commenced on this date.

For your convenience, the details of my request are repeated below.

"This is a request for information under the Freedom of Information Act.

I request the document(s) which describe the data provided to the external organisation(s) responsible for conducting the ballot(s) for all Enterprise Agreements put to staff for a vote.

The scope of this request is limited only to those ballots undertaken for enterprise agreements which were proposed to take effect after 30 June 2014.

The document shall describe the data given to the ballot agent. For example, employee name, employee identification number, employee email address, etc. I exclude the data for specific employees here; I am only after the 'meta-data'.

If it assists you to treat this as an administrative request for information I encourage you to do so. Otherwise, please consider this a formal FOI request."

Yours sincerely,

James Smith

FOI, Australian Taxation Office

 
Dear Mr Smith,
 
The ATO does not process FOI requests received via righttoknow.org.au.
Please send your FOI request direct to [1][ATO request email].  Alternatively,
you can contact the ATO on 13 28 69 and ask for Freedom of Information.
 
 
Regards,
 
FOI team
 
 
 

**********************************************************************
IMPORTANT
    The information transmitted is for the use of the intended
recipient only and may contain confidential and/or legally
privileged material. Any review, re-transmission, disclosure,
dissemination or other use of, or taking of any action in
reliance upon, this information by persons or entities other
than the intended recipient is prohibited and may result in
severe penalties. If you have received this e-mail in error
please notify the Privacy Hotline of the Australian Taxation
Office, telephone 1300 661 542 and delete all copies of this
transmission together with any attachments.
**********************************************************************

References

Visible links
1. mailto:[ATO request email]

hide quoted sections

Dear Australian Taxation Office,

This request has been lodged in accordance with the FOI Act and the guidelines issued by the Office of the Australian Information Commission.

I cannot accept your refusal to process this request simply because it was also published on Right To Know.

Further, the ATO has not provided any detail of the legality of your decision to refuse this request.

I therefore respectfully request you continue to process my request, which was lodged via email to your nominated address, [email address], on 16 February 2017. Your statutory period to process my request commenced on this date.

For your convenience, the details of my request are repeated below.

"This is a request for information under the Freedom of Information Act.

I request the document(s) which describe the data provided to the external organisation(s) responsible for conducting the ballot(s) for all Enterprise Agreements put to staff for a vote.

The scope of this request is limited only to those ballots undertaken for enterprise agreements which were proposed to take effect after 30 June 2014.

The document shall describe the data given to the ballot agent. For example, employee name, employee identification number, employee email address, etc. I exclude the data for specific employees here; I am only after the 'meta-data'.

If it assists you to treat this as an administrative request for information I encourage you to do so. Otherwise, please consider this a formal FOI request."

Yours sincerely,

James Smith

Ben Fairless left an annotation ()

The Information Commissioner has made a formal recommendation to the ATO to start processing to Freedom of Information requests made via Right to Know. More Information on this can be found here: https://www.openaustraliafoundation.org....

Locutus Sum left an annotation ()

My comment is an addition to the comments by Mr. Fairless. I also make a specific suggestion.

Although the Australian Taxation Office wrote to the applicant to say that the Office would not process the application, something did happen. The thing that happened was that 30 days after the date when the application was lodged, section 15AC(3) of the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (Cth) had the effect of making a "deemed decision" to refuse the request ... this is unless the Commissioner grants more time.

Because of the effect of the Act, I make the following suggestions to the applicant:
(1) Do not write to the Australian Taxation Office and complain that a decision on your request is "overdue". It is not. A deemed decision was made 30 days after you lodged the application.
(2) Instead, use this Right to Know page (or you can create a new request page) to write exactly the same request to the Australian Taxation Office. If you want to grumble, then you can always say (in the new request email) that you made the same request earlier on this-and-then date.

I make this suggestion because if you only write and complain that your request is "overdue", then after a delay, the Australian Taxation Office might (correctly) write back to you and say, "No it is not". Of course, the purpose of this would be to delay to process your request (because the office will now have suddenly a lot of requests) but it will still have the effect that you must lodge a new request. Therefore, you can lose nothing to use this Right to Know page to make a new request now! It will start the clock again.

FOI, Australian Taxation Office

1 Attachment

 
Dear FOI Applicant,
 
Please see the attachment.
 
 
 
Yours faithfully,
 
FOI Team
 
 

**********************************************************************

IMPORTANT

    The information transmitted is for the use of the intended

recipient only and may contain confidential and/or legally

privileged material. Any review, re-transmission, disclosure,

dissemination or other use of, or taking of any action in

reliance upon, this information by persons or entities other

than the intended recipient is prohibited and may result in

severe penalties. If you have received this e-mail in error

please notify the Privacy Hotline of the Australian Taxation

Office, telephone 1300 661 542 and delete all copies of this

transmission together with any attachments.

*********************************************************************

hide quoted sections

FOI, Australian Taxation Office

1 Attachment

 
Dear FOI Applicant,
 
Please see attachment.
 
 
Yours faithfully,
 
FOI Team
 
 

**********************************************************************

IMPORTANT

    The information transmitted is for the use of the intended

recipient only and may contain confidential and/or legally

privileged material. Any review, re-transmission, disclosure,

dissemination or other use of, or taking of any action in

reliance upon, this information by persons or entities other

than the intended recipient is prohibited and may result in

severe penalties. If you have received this e-mail in error

please notify the Privacy Hotline of the Australian Taxation

Office, telephone 1300 661 542 and delete all copies of this

transmission together with any attachments.

*********************************************************************

hide quoted sections