Thank you for contacting the Freedom of Information (FOI) team at the
Attorney-General’s Department (the department). We get a high volume of
emails and FOI applications and work to respond as promptly as possible.
This auto-reply email confirms your email has been delivered to the
[AGD request email] mailbox. If you have written to the department to submit an
FOI request, please consider this email to be an acknowledgement of its
receipt.
Please note that we will only respond to emails about the Freedom of
Information Act 1982 (the FOI Act). For information on how to make a
request under the FOI Act please refer to:
https://www.ag.gov.au/rights-and-protect....
For enquiries about other matters, please refer to:
https://www.ag.gov.au/about-us/connect-u....
The statutory processing time for FOI requests is 30 days, however this
may be extended if the department needs to consult third parties or for
other reasons. If you have submitted an FOI request, the department will
write to you again within 30 days of receiving your request. This
correspondence may:
* provide assistance to you to help you make a valid FOI request,
* seek further information from you to help us process your request,
* provide you with a decision on your FOI request, or
* discuss whether an extension of time is needed to process your request.
Please do not send duplicate emails as this may cause delays to processing
times.
This FOI inbox is monitored during business hours Monday to Friday,
excluding public holidays.
You can expect our team to provide a helpful, respectful service and we
expect respectful engagement in return.
Under s 89L of the FOI Act, disrespectful, threatening or abusive language
may be an abuse of the access action process. If this happens, we may not
be able to help you or we might take steps to manage how we communicate
with you.
If you have received this transmission in error please notify us
immediately by return e-mail and delete all copies. If this e-mail or any
attachments have been sent to you in error, that error does not constitute
waiver of any confidentiality, privilege or copyright in respect of
information in the e-mail or attachments.
If you have received this transmission in error please notify us
immediately by return e-mail and delete all copies. If this e-mail or any
attachments have been sent to you in error, that error does not constitute
waiver of any confidentiality, privilege or copyright in respect of
information in the e-mail or attachments.

OFFICIAL
Good morning

Thank you for your request, which was received by the Commonwealth Attorney-General’s Department (the department) Freedom of Information (FOI) section (reference number FOI25/196). We write to acknowledge your request, seek an extension of time for processing, and your agreement to exclude certain information from your request.

Request for extension of time
We received your FOI request on 9 April 2025 and the 30 day statutory period for processing your request commenced on the following day. The statutory due date for decision is currently Friday 9 May 2025. Due to an increase in the number of information access applications currently being received by the department, a case officer is yet to be allocated and we therefore seek your agreement to a 30-day extension of time to process this request under s 15AA of the FOI Act. This would mean that a decision about your request would be due on Sunday 8 June 2025 and would be sent the next business day on Tuesday 10 June 2025.

If we are in a position to make a decision earlier than this date, we will endeavour to do so. The statutory period may also be extended if we need to consult third parties or for other reasons permitted under the FOI Act. We will advise you if this happens.

Request to exclude certain information from the scope of your request
The department is seeking your agreement to exclude the following categories of information from the documents in your request:
- duplicates of documents that are in scope;
- personal information of members of the public;
- contact details for teams, internal to the department and other agencies
- personal information belonging to officers of the department and other government agencies.

Excluding the information listed above enables us to process your request more efficiently. If you agree to the above exclusions, the names of senior executive officers will be released where they are present in the documents and do not attract an FOI exemption. In addition, publicly available telephone numbers and email addresses will generally be released.

Next steps
Please respond to this email by Friday 18 April 2025 to confirm if you agree to this extension of time and to the exclusion of the above information. If you agree to the extension, we will notify the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) of your agreement under s 15AA of the FOI Act, including your name and contact details.

If you would like to discuss this further please contact the FOI Team by phoning (02) 6141 6666 or emailing [AGD request email].

Kind regards

Freedom of Information & Privacy
Attorney-General’s Department
Phone: (02) 6141 6666 | Email: [AGD request email]
OFFICIAL

show quoted sections

Thank you for contacting the Freedom of Information (FOI) team at the
Attorney-General’s Department (the department). We get a high volume of
emails and FOI applications and work to respond as promptly as possible.
This auto-reply email confirms your email has been delivered to the
[AGD request email] mailbox. If you have written to the department to submit an
FOI request, please consider this email to be an acknowledgement of its
receipt.
Please note that we will only respond to emails about the Freedom of
Information Act 1982 (the FOI Act). For information on how to make a
request under the FOI Act please refer to:
https://www.ag.gov.au/rights-and-protect....
For enquiries about other matters, please refer to:
https://www.ag.gov.au/about-us/connect-u....
The statutory processing time for FOI requests is 30 days, however this
may be extended if the department needs to consult third parties or for
other reasons. If you have submitted an FOI request, the department will
write to you again within 30 days of receiving your request. This
correspondence may:
* provide assistance to you to help you make a valid FOI request,
* seek further information from you to help us process your request,
* provide you with a decision on your FOI request, or
* discuss whether an extension of time is needed to process your request.
Please do not send duplicate emails as this may cause delays to processing
times.
This FOI inbox is monitored during business hours Monday to Friday,
excluding public holidays.
You can expect our team to provide a helpful, respectful service and we
expect respectful engagement in return.
Under s 89L of the FOI Act, disrespectful, threatening or abusive language
may be an abuse of the access action process. If this happens, we may not
be able to help you or we might take steps to manage how we communicate
with you.
If you have received this transmission in error please notify us
immediately by return e-mail and delete all copies. If this e-mail or any
attachments have been sent to you in error, that error does not constitute
waiver of any confidentiality, privilege or copyright in respect of
information in the e-mail or attachments.
If you have received this transmission in error please notify us
immediately by return e-mail and delete all copies. If this e-mail or any
attachments have been sent to you in error, that error does not constitute
waiver of any confidentiality, privilege or copyright in respect of
information in the e-mail or attachments.

OFFICIAL

Dear Bob

Thank you for speaking to me over the phone on Wednesday afternoon.

I have been assigned as the Case Officer to work on your Freedom of
Information (FOI) request that you submitted to the department on 9 April
2025 for documents in relation to:

... information about communication with Autism Aspergers Advocacy
Australia  (known as A4) since 1/1/2022. What communication was received?
And what, if anything was done, in relation to the communications?

Note that A4's primary email address for its communication is convenor at
a4.org.au ([1][email address]).

Also, the response MC25-015878 2/4/2025 (which is World Autism Awareness
Day) said "The matters you raise do not fall within the Attorney-General’s
portfolio responsibilities ...".

We are very keen to see the basis for this statement.

We have been working on your request that is currently due on 10 June 2025
with the Ministerial Correspondence Unit inside the department and they
have identified a large number of documents that were sent to the
department from Autism Aspergers Advocacy Australia between 1 January 2022
and 9 April 2025. Due to a busy period it has taken longer than expected
to go through the documents that are currently within the scope of your
request. When I spoke to you over the phone you mentioned that you are
seeking a list of the correspondence received from your organisation from
1 January 2022 until 9 April 2025 and the actions taken to respond to each
item of correspondence.

I would be grateful if you could please confirm in writing that you are
seeking to revise the scope of your request to seeking:

… a list of the correspondence sent from Autism Aspergers Advocacy
Australia between 1 January 2022 and 9 April 2025 and the actions taken on
responding to each item.

If you agree to revise the scope of your request you can either choose to
continue with your current FOI request or decide to withdraw your request
and receive the information through administrative access. If you agree to
withdraw your request and receive the information through administrative
access it will allow the department to release the information to you in a
more efficient manner outside of the FOI Act.

We would be grateful if you could review and respond as soon as possible.

Kind regards

Alistair

Case Officer | Freedom of Information & Privacy | Office of Corporate
Counsel

Attorney-General’s Department
Phone (02) 6141 6666 | Email [AGD request email]

show quoted sections

Thank you for contacting the Freedom of Information (FOI) team at the
Attorney-General’s Department (the department). We get a high volume of
emails and FOI applications and work to respond as promptly as possible.
This auto-reply email confirms your email has been delivered to the
[AGD request email] mailbox. If you have written to the department to submit an
FOI request, please consider this email to be an acknowledgement of its
receipt.
Please note that we will only respond to emails about the Freedom of
Information Act 1982 (the FOI Act). For information on how to make a
request under the FOI Act please refer to:
https://www.ag.gov.au/rights-and-protect....
For enquiries about other matters, please refer to:
https://www.ag.gov.au/about-us/connect-u....
The statutory processing time for FOI requests is 30 days, however this
may be extended if the department needs to consult third parties or for
other reasons. If you have submitted an FOI request, the department will
write to you again within 30 days of receiving your request. This
correspondence may:
* provide assistance to you to help you make a valid FOI request,
* seek further information from you to help us process your request,
* provide you with a decision on your FOI request, or
* discuss whether an extension of time is needed to process your request.
Please do not send duplicate emails as this may cause delays to processing
times.
This FOI inbox is monitored during business hours Monday to Friday,
excluding public holidays.
You can expect our team to provide a helpful, respectful service and we
expect respectful engagement in return.
Under s 89L of the FOI Act, disrespectful, threatening or abusive language
may be an abuse of the access action process. If this happens, we may not
be able to help you or we might take steps to manage how we communicate
with you.
If you have received this transmission in error please notify us
immediately by return e-mail and delete all copies. If this e-mail or any
attachments have been sent to you in error, that error does not constitute
waiver of any confidentiality, privilege or copyright in respect of
information in the e-mail or attachments.
If you have received this transmission in error please notify us
immediately by return e-mail and delete all copies. If this e-mail or any
attachments have been sent to you in error, that error does not constitute
waiver of any confidentiality, privilege or copyright in respect of
information in the e-mail or attachments.

OFFICIAL

Dear Mr Buckley

Freedom of Information Request FOI25/196

I refer to your request to the Attorney-General's Department (the
department) under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (FOI Act) for access
to documents. 

The purpose of this email is to provide you with a decision in response to
that request. 

Please find attached:

o decision letter, including:

o review rights,
o schedule of documents,
o statement of reasons, and

o documents.

If you have any questions, please contact me by telephone on (02) 6141
6666 or by email to [1][AGD request email].

Kind regards

Alistair

Case Officer | Freedom of Information & Privacy | Office of Corporate
Counsel

Attorney-General’s Department
Phone (02) 6141 6666 | Email [AGD request email]

OFFICIAL

The Attorney-General’s Department may collect your personal information
where it is reasonably necessary for, or directly related to, our
functions, including those under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (FOI
Act) and the Privacy Act 1988. We may collect your name, email address and
telephone number so that we can contact you about your request or privacy
complaint. If your request concerns accessing or correcting your personal
information, we will collect the minimum amount of evidence necessary to
verify your identity. We hold personal information in accordance with the
Privacy Act and our privacy policy. If you have an enquiry or complaint
about your privacy, please contact the Privacy Officer on 02 6141 6666 or
via e-mail [email address]. 
If you have received this email in error, please notify us immediately by
return email and delete all copies. If this email or any attachments have
been sent to you in error, that error does not constitute waiver of any
confidentiality, privilege or copyright in respect of information in the
email or attachments.

References

Visible links
1. mailto:[AGD request email]