Dear Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (the Department),

The following is an application for the purposes of the FOI Act.

I am conducting research, across a range of Government agencies, into the Government's enterprise bargaining framework for the Commonwealth Public Service. Specifically, in the interests of equity and transparency, whether the Government's policy to reduce the living standards of rank and file public servants (that is, public servants who are not considered senior executive service staff ('SES')) also extends to SES public servants.

I refer the Department to my FOI request made of the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner here (the 'OAIC request'): https://www.righttoknow.org.au/request/p...

By this application I make the same request of the Department albeit such that every reference to 'OAIC' in the OAIC request should be read as a reference to the 'Department'. I rely on all my submissions contained in the OAIC request, in support of this request made of the Department under s.15 of the FOI Act.

Further, I am amenable to the Department providing copies of relevant group certificates or otherwise a payroll report or other summary document with the names of the relevant officers redacted but only on the condition that each relevant officer's name be replaced by a single unique identifier such that each relevant SES officer's precise salary can be tracked over the three relevant financial years (eg. SES officer #1, SES officer #2, SES officer #3 etc).

Thanks.

Dear FOI,

I withdraw my request made of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (the Department) on 8 February 2018 and substitute it with the following request made under section 15 of the FOI Act.

I am conducting research, across a range of Government agencies, into the Government's enterprise bargaining framework for the Commonwealth Public Service. Specifically, in the interests of equity and transparency, whether the Government's policy to reduce the living standards of rank and file public servants (that is, public servants who are not considered senior executive service staff ('SES')) also extends to SES public servants.

I refer the Department to my FOI request made of the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner here (the 'OAIC request'): https://www.righttoknow.org.au/request/p...

By this application I make the same request of the Department albeit such that every reference to 'OAIC' in the OAIC request should be read as a reference to the 'Department', and the each reference to 'SES officers' be read as a reference to the Department's SES Band 2 and SES Band 3 officers for the purposes of this request. I rely on all my submissions contained in the OAIC request, in support of this request made of the APSC under s.15 of the FOI Act.

Further, I am amenable to the Department providing copies of relevant group certificates or otherwise a payroll report or other summary document with the names of the relevant SES Band 2 and 3 officers redacted but only on the condition that each relevant officer's name be replaced by a single unique identifier such that each relevant SES officer's precise salary can be tracked over the three relevant financial years (eg. SES officer #1, SES officer #2, SES officer #3 etc).

I note the Department's comments in its email to me of 12 February 2018 as follows:

"[...] The Department considers that compiling and then redacting the group certificates of over 200 individuals, for the last three financial years, would require an unreasonable diversion of resources.

Further in relation to your request that data be amended to allow for the specific tracking of individuals, we note that the FOI Act does not require the creation of a document in response to a request. As it is not possible to extract data in this manner, this element of you request is outside the scope of the FOI Act."

I refer the Department to the Information Commissioner's authoritative guidance given in in 'MZ' and Department of Communications and the Arts (Freedom of information) [2017] AICmr 109 (27 October 2017): http://www6.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewd... (an IC review decision concerning an FOI request the same is this one but made of a different agency). Noting the Department has already made contentions concerning the resources required to process my request, the Department should note the following relevant aspects of the IC’s decision:

• the IC’s emphasis of the importance of the object of the FOI Act set out at subsection 3(4) which states Parliament’s intention ‘that functions and powers given by this Act are to be performed and exercised, as far as possible, to facilitate and promote public access to information, promptly and at the lowest reasonable cost’ (at [16]);
• the IC’s statement at paragraph [15] of his decision that ‘ […] if a payroll report or other summary document could be produced that would meet the terms of the request I consider that producing such a document may reasonably serve to somewhat reduce the request processing burden on the Department’
• the IC’s statement at paragraph [24] of his decision that ‘in previous IC review decisions I have generally accepted an estimate between 30 seconds per page and 5 minutes per page as a reasonable estimate of the time required to assess and apply the relevant exemptions to the documents’;
• the IC’s statement at paragraph [26] of his decision that ‘I consider that the consultation and editing processes would be relatively streamlined given the apparent general uniformity between each of the payment summaries and each of the request consultation notices. In this regard, I note that a typical payment summary is a single page document’;
• the IC’s statement at paragraphs [33] – [34] of his decision that:
‘In this IC review, I consider that marking up and editing irrelevant material should not take much more than 1 minute per payment summary. Given that the Department has identified 33 relevant officers and there appears to be a maximum of three payment summaries per officer, I am satisfied that an estimate of 99 minutes, or a little over an hour and a half would be a reasonable estimate of the time required to complete this task.’

I would also urge the Department to carefully consider my submissions in my FOI request made of the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner here (the 'OAIC request'): https://www.righttoknow.org.au/request/p... which set sout the established wide and countervailing public interest in knowing precisely how much senior public servants receive in public funding for performing public duties.

Thank you for your email. To assist me to determine whether the preliminary assessment of the charge notified has been properly determined in accordance with the principles expertly and authoritatively set out by the Information Commissioner in 'MZ' and Department of Communications and the Arts (Freedom of information) [2017]: http://www6.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewd... - could you please inform me of the number of SES Band 2 and 3 officers to whom my request applies.

Dear FOI,

My FOI request relates to the precise amount of punlic funds paid to senior public servants categorised as SES band 2 and 3 officers at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) in respect of their performance of public duties for particular financial years.

Despite that it would have been necessary for DFAT to know the precise number of relevant SES band 2 and 3 officers for the purposes of properly preparing a notice in accordance with the requirements of s.29(1) of the FOI Act (noting paragraph 29(1)(b)) in particular) - in response to my query dated 23 February (which simply requested that number), DFAT has directed me towards public documents which do not disclose the relevant number of SES band 2 and 3 officers.

At this point, it is appropriate to remind DFAT officers responsible for processing my request of their obligations under the Public Service Act 1999 - in particular, the obligation to behave honestly, with integrity, transparently, accountably, impartially and in accordance with the law.

Again, I request that DFAT inform me of the precise number of SES Band 2 and 3 officers to whom my request applies. Assuming DFAT has properly calculated the preliminary assessment of the charge in accordance with: i) the requirements of s.29(1) of the FOI Act; and ii) the principles expertly and authoritatively set out by the Information Commissioner in 'MZ' and Department of Communications and the Arts (Freedom of information) [2017], the requested figure should be readily available.

As an aside:
i) I note that the published information concerning the remuneration of DFAT's SES officers that the DFAT has referred me to is presented so broadly such that it is incapable of any detailed or sensible analysis - particularly when having regard to my request, part of the purpose for which is to determine the precise level of salary increases given to particular DFAT SES officers for a period in which rank and file DFAT staff have had their living standards reduced;

ii) I remind DFAT officers responsible for processing my request that the precise remuneration paid to senior public servants for performing public duties is a matter of wide and countervailing public interest. That is established by authority including that set out in Re Ricketson and Royal Women's Hospital (1989) 4 VAR 10; Re Forbes and Department of Premier & Cabinet (1993) 6 VAR 53; Re Stewart and Department of Transport (1993) 1 QAR 227; Re Thwaites and Metropolitan Ambulance Service (unreported, 13 June 1997); Re Milthorpe and Mt. Alexander Shire Council (1997) 12 VAR 105; Re National Tertiary Education Industry Union (Murdoch Branch) and Murdoch University; Ors [2001] WAICmr 1 and Asher and Department of State and Regional Development [2002] VCAT 609; and

iii) I also remind DFAT officers that I am amenable to the DFAT providing copies of relevant group certificates or otherwise a payroll report or other summary document with the names of the relevant officers redacted but only on the condition that each relevant officer's name be replaced by a single unique identifier such that each relevant SES officer's precise salary can be tracked over the three relevant financial years (eg. SES officer #1, SES officer #2, SES officer #3 etc).

Dear FOI,

Notwithstanding that your notice to me of 20 February 2018 is invalid (including because it doesn't comply with the requirements of paragraph 29(1)(b) of the FOI Act), I am writing to further refine the scope of my request such that it relates only to DFAT’s SES Band 3 staff.