Migration stream by country of birth

knav2013 made this Freedom of Information request to Department of Social Services

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 successful.

Dear Department of Immigration and Border Protection,

I hereby request, under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (Cth), a copy of the following document titled MIGRATION STREAM BY COUNTRY OF BIRTH available at:

http://www.immi.gov.au/living-in-austral...

for the settlement date [1][2] range 22 June 1993 to 03 April 2014. The document available at the above location is only for the date range:

1 October 2008 to 31 September 2013.

I specifically refer to Section 17 (1)(c)(i) of the Act (please see note 1 and 3 below) that says:

(c) the agency could produce a written document containing the information in discrete form by:

(i) the use of a computer or other equipment that is ordinarily available to the agency for retrieving or collating stored information

I also refer to part 8 of the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) guidelines (please see note 2 below)

"8.110 Section 17 requires an agency to produce a written document if the applicant does not wish to be provided with a computer tape or disk. ..."

In addition, part 8.111 which sets out "As the definition of a document includes ‘any part of a document’, it is possible for an applicant to request information that is held in electronic form but stored in different formats or across databases. An agency should undertake reasonable efforts to arrange access to that information in one of the forms set out at s 20, or in a hard copy form (s 17).

Please send (post on this site) the reproduced document in both spreadsheet format (.xls format) and PDF format if this does not interfere with your work or become resource intensive, for the date range requested.[3][4]

Note that the The Right to Know email address is valid for the purposes of s.15(2)(c) of the FOI Act.

I also make an application that all costs for the processing of this request be waived on the grounds that the release of this information is in the public interest, as the information will allow public awareness in the available migration streams and their use.

Yours faithfully,

kushra navartne

[1] - including stateless persons.

[2] - Settlement Date is 'date of visa grant' for settlers who were in Australia when their visa was granted, and 'date of arrival in Australia' for settlers who were overseas when their visa was granted. I presume that both sets of data were used for producing the document MIGRATION STREAM BY COUNTRY OF BIRTH.

[3] - If convenience and efficiency allows you to export the data to the requested formats.

[4] - I refer to OAIC guidelines (note 2 below - use of pdf document) section -

8.108 The FOI Act gives a legally enforceable right of access to documents that already exist. An agency is not required to create a new document to satisfy an FOI request.[20]

However, it may sometimes be simple and more effective to create a new document, for example, where information can be easily compiled from a database to answer a specific request, rather than providing many separate documents with extensive deletions. In those
cases, the Information Commissioner encourages agencies to consult the applicant and determine if doing so will satisfy their request (see also paragraphs 8.110–8.113 .... ).

[20] - Davis and Attorney-General's Department [1986] AATA 554.

Note 1 - also referred to in Part 3 of the OAIC guidelines available at:

http://www.oaic.gov.au/freedom-of-inform...

Note 2- part 8 of the OAIC guidelines - I have used the pdf document available at:

http://www.oaic.gov.au/images/documents/...

the information is available on the OAIC website at the location below:

http://www.oaic.gov.au/freedom-of-inform...

However, it notes the particular section as "8.111 Section 17 requires an agency to produce a written document if the applicant does not wish to be provided with a computer tape or disk. ..."

AND

lists "8.112 As the definition of a document includes ‘any part of a document', it is possible for an applicant to request information that is held in electronic form but stored in different formats or across databases. An agency should undertake reasonable efforts to arrange access to that information in one of the forms set out at s 20, or in a hard copy form (s 17)."

There is clearly a mismatch between the particular sections of the pdf version and the website version. I have used the pdf document version throughout this request.

Note 3 - I have referred to the FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 1982 document available at the location below for the purposes of this request:

http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/downlo...

1 Attachment

UNCLASSIFIED

Our references; FA 14/05/00388; ADF2014/15602

 

To kushra navartne

 

Transfer of request under section 16 of the FOI Act

 

I refer to your request received 1 May 2014 in which you sought access
under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (the FOI Act) to documents
relating to:

 

I hereby request, under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (Cth), a copy
of the following document titled MIGRATION STREAM BY COUNTRY OF BIRTH
available at:

 

<[1]http://www.immi.gov.au/living-in-austral...>

 

for the settlement date [1][2] range 22 June 1993 to 03 April 2014.  The
document available at the above location is only for the date range:

 

1 October 2008 to 31 September 2013.

 

[1] - including stateless persons.

 

[2] - Settlement Date is 'date of visa grant' for settlers who were in
Australia when their visa was granted, and 'date of arrival in Australia'
for settlers who were overseas when their visa was granted. I presume that
both sets of data were used for producing the document MIGRATION STREAM BY
COUNTRY OF BIRTH.

The documents relevant to your request are held by and more closely
connected to the functions of the Department of Social Services

The Department of Social Services has accepted the transfer of your
request under section 16 of the FOI Act on 8 may 2014 so they can make a
decision on your request for access to their documents.  

The Department of Social Services will be writing to you directly
concerning your request.  If you want to make any enquiries relating to
your request, please contact: [Department of Social Services request email]

 

Your sincerely

Janelle

 

__________________________________

Janelle Raineri

FOI Inbox Manager

FOI & Privacy Policy Section
Department of Immigration and Border Protection

Email: [2][email address]

 

 

 

UNCLASSIFIED

References

Visible links
1. http://www.immi.gov.au/living-in-austral...
2. mailto:[email address]

Ben Fairless left an annotation ()

Updated the Request to indicate that it has been transferred to Department of Social Services.

FOI, Department of Social Services

3 Attachments

Good afternoon Kushra Navartne

 

Please find attached correspondence regarding FOI request 13/14-118

 

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Regards

L. Ellis
Departmental Officer I FOI

DSS Legal

Department of Social Services

 

DSS acknowledges the traditional owners of country throughout Australia,
and their continuing connection to land, sea and community. We pay our
respects to them and their cultures, and to elders both past and
present.            

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knav2013 left an annotation ()

The way this request was handled was good, however, it seems the links to the reports on the attached document 2_3_letter to applicant 118.docx are not accessible. An error comes-up when I attempt to access.

I've managed to re-create the reports using the information sent with this request and the information on the http://www.immi.gov.au/settlement/ website. We are free to share and redistribute material of this nature. [1]

Below are the two reports,[2] for the date range[3] and data type:

a) arrival date -
http://kvisit.com/Ow/3xk
b) visa grant date -
http://kvisit.com/Ow/4Bk

Here are some data from the reports a) and b) listed above, for the migration stream 'humanitarian': [4]

---------------(a)------------(b)
Denmark-------14-------------13
England--------10-------------14
U.K------------29-------------35
U.S.A----------28-------------40
Canada---------11-------------14

Greece---------72------------76
Germany-------636----------655
Cyprus----------43-----------43
Czech Rep.------7-------------7
France----------43-----------45
Belgium---------9-------------9

Germany's numbers could be explained by the descendents of foreign settlers, who were born in Germany, but did not have German citizenship at the time of applying for a Australian humanitarian visa from Germany (a) or after arriving in Australia (b). Germany has made changes to citizenship acquisition so that children of foreign residents are able to acquire citizenship easily in comparison to their previous policies.

If the links to attached document 2_3_letter to applicant 118.docx are not accessible by 20 May 2014 I am going to request an internal review.

[1] - see http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3...
also
http://www.immi.gov.au/About/Pages/copyr...

[2] - Source: Department of Immigration and Border Protection

[3] - 22 June 1993 to 03 April 2014

[4] - Care should taken when interpreting the figures for Germany as it includes the following Country of birth (direct) categories:

Berlin (so stated)
Berlin, East (so stated)
Germany, Fed Republic of
Germany Democratic Republic
Germany
Berlin, West (so stated)

Please refer to Settlement Reporting Facility - SRF Data Dictionary (External) - version 2 (05/13), page 63, available at:
http://www.immi.gov.au/living-in-austral...

and

Settlement Reporting Facility - Producing reports by country of birth - version 2 (08/13), page 5, available at:
http://www.immi.gov.au/living-in-austral...

also

Settlement Reporting Facility - Frequently asked question - version 2 (08-13), page 6, available at:
http://www.immi.gov.au/living-in-austral...