Dear Office of the Australian Information Commissioner,

I hereby request an external review from the Office of the Australian Commissioner (OAIC) of the NDIA's response to my FOI request 25/26-0105 - see https://www.righttoknow.org.au/request/b...

The agency has refused access to my request on the basis of section 24(1)(b) of the FOI Act - practical refusal – specifically on the grounds that it would take 4-5 hours to process each of the 68 documents requested.

I do not believe this to be a credible estimate.

One example of the type of briefing that I have requested has already been provided as part of a separate FOI request, being NDIS FOI 24/25-0251, document 2, which is available at this link – https://www.righttoknow.org.au/request/f...

This briefing, including attachments, is 11 pages in length. I do not accept that it would take the NDIA’s FOI unit 4-5 hours to process such a document type.

Advice previously given by the agency is that it reviews documents at a rate of 3 minutes per page. See here - https://www.righttoknow.org.au/request/1...

Based on this rate, each briefing that I have requested would need to be approximately 80-100 pages in length in order for the agency to take 4-5 hours to process it.

It should be noted that the NDIA’s decision letter states that of the sample of 7 documents reviewed, ‘5 documents contained more than 1 attachment’ and ‘each document was more than five pages’, but it does not disclose the total number of pages contained in the 7 sample documents.

I find it very hard to believe that the briefings of the type I have requested are all in the order of 80-100 pages.

The agency has therefore not validated and justified it’s claim, and I ask that OAIC investigates this matter and interrogates the basis of the NDIA’s estimate, which it cites as a basis for the practical refusal.

Yours faithfully,
David Wright