s 70 complaints made under the FOI Act about Veterans Affairs

Response to this request is long overdue. By law, under all circumstances, Office of the Australian Information Commissioner should have responded by now (details). You can complain by requesting an internal review.

Dear Office of the Australian Information Commissioner,

I request copy of all s 70 complaints made under the FOI Act about Veterans Affairs. I also request copy of the corresponding Resolve report for each of these s 70 complaints in scope.

I also request copy of any own motion investigation under the FOI Act about Veterans Affairs.

All personal information about private individuals (persons who are not Commonwealth officials performing their duties) is irrelevant and exempt under s 22, requiring no consideration. All email addresses and telephone numbers are also irrelevant and exempt under s 22, requiring no consideration.

Ciao,

Julie

Legal, Office of the Australian Information Commissioner

5 Attachments

Dear Julie

Freedom of Information request

I refer to your request for access to documents made under the Freedom of
Information Act 1982 (Cth) (the FOI Act) and received by the Office of the
Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) on 3 May 2022.

Scope of your request

In your email you seek access to the following:

“I request copy of all s 70 complaints made under the FOI Act about
Veterans Affairs. I also request copy of the corresponding Resolve report
for each of these s 70 complaints in scope.

 

I also request copy of any own motion investigation under the FOI Act
about Veterans Affairs.

 

All personal information about private individuals (persons who are not
Commonwealth officials performing their duties) is irrelevant and exempt
under s 22, requiring no consideration. All email addresses and telephone
numbers are also irrelevant and exempt under s 22, requiring no
consideration.”

In order to process your request as efficiently as possible, I will
exclude duplicates and early parts of email streams that are captured in
later email streams from the scope of this request, unless you advise me
otherwise.

We will not identify you as the FOI applicant during and consultation
process. However, documents that are within the scope of your request that
we may need to consult third parties about may contain your personal
information.

Timeframes for dealing with your request

Section 15 of the FOI Act requires this office to process your request no
later than 30 days after the day we receive it. However, section 15(6) of
the FOI Act allows us a further 30 days in situations where we need to
consult with third parties about certain information, such as business
documents or documents affecting their personal privacy.

As we received your request on 3 May 2022, at this stage we must process
your request by 2 June 2022.

Disclosure Log

Documents released under the FOI Act may be published online on our
disclosure log, unless they contain personal or business information that
would be unreasonable to publish.

If you would like to discuss this matter please contact me on my contact
details set out below.

Regards

[1][IMG]   Toby Shanks |  Paralegal

Legal Services

Office of the Australian
Information Commissioner

GPO Box 5218 Sydney NSW 2001  |
 [2]oaic.gov.au

1300 363 992
| [3][email address]
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OAIC - Legal, Office of the Australian Information Commissioner

6 Attachments

OAIC ref: FOIREQ22/00120

 

 

Dear Julie

 

I refer to your request for access to documents made under the Freedom of
Information Act 1982 (Cth) (the FOI Act) and received by the Office of the
Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) on 3 May 2022.

 

Please find attached decision of today’s date.

 

Kind regards

Margaret

 

 

[1]O A I C logo   Margaret Sui |  Senior Lawyer

Legal Services

Office of the Australian
Information Commissioner

GPO Box 5218 Sydney NSW 2001  |
 [2]oaic.gov.au

+61 2 9942 4145  |
[3][email address]
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Notice:

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be confidential information, and may also be the subject of legal
professional privilege. If you are not the intended recipient any use,
disclosure or copying of this email is unauthorised. If you received this
email in error, please notify the sender by contacting the department's
switchboard on 1300 488 064 during business hours (8:30am - 5pm Canberra
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References

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Dear Office of the Australian Information Commissioner,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of Office of the Australian Information Commissioner's handling of my FOI request 's 70 complaints made under the FOI Act about Veterans Affairs'.

Apart from being a decision purporting to give partial access without giving such access, some of the exemption claims are untenable.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.righttoknow.org.au/request/s...

Yours faithfully,

Julie

OAIC - Legal, Office of the Australian Information Commissioner

7 Attachments

OAIC ref: FOIREQ22/00120

 

Dear Julie

 

Please find attached the schedule of documents and the first part of the
document bundle being released to you in relation to your FOI request
(FOIREQ22/00120). 

 

Please note that due to the size of the documents released to you, the
documents will be sent to you in 4 emails.

 

This is email 1 of 4.

 

Kind regards

Margaret

 

 

[1]O A I C logo   Margaret Sui |  Senior Lawyer

Legal Services

Office of the Australian
Information Commissioner

GPO Box 5218 Sydney NSW 2001  |
 [2]oaic.gov.au

+61 2 9942 4145  |
[3][email address]
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Notice:

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be confidential information, and may also be the subject of legal
professional privilege. If you are not the intended recipient any use,
disclosure or copying of this email is unauthorised. If you received this
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OAIC - Legal, Office of the Australian Information Commissioner

6 Attachments

OAIC ref: FOIREQ22/00120

 

Dear Julie

 

Please find attached the second part of the document bundle being released
to you in relation to your FOI request (FOIREQ22/00120). 

 

This is email 2 of 4.

 

 

Kind regards

Margaret

 

 

[1]O A I C logo   Margaret Sui |  Senior Lawyer

Legal Services

Office of the Australian
Information Commissioner

GPO Box 5218 Sydney NSW 2001  |
 [2]oaic.gov.au

+61 2 9942 4145  |
[3][email address]
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Notice:

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be confidential information, and may also be the subject of legal
professional privilege. If you are not the intended recipient any use,
disclosure or copying of this email is unauthorised. If you received this
email in error, please notify the sender by contacting the department's
switchboard on 1300 488 064 during business hours (8:30am - 5pm Canberra
time) and delete all copies of this transmission together with any
attachments.

References

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OAIC - Legal, Office of the Australian Information Commissioner

6 Attachments

OAIC ref: FOIREQ22/00120

 

Dear Julie

 

Please find attached the fifth and final part of the document bundle being
released to you in relation to your FOI request (FOIREQ22/00120).  This is
email 4 of 4.

 

Kind regards

Margaret

 

 

[1]O A I C logo   Margaret Sui |  Senior Lawyer

Legal Services

Office of the Australian
Information Commissioner

GPO Box 5218 Sydney NSW 2001  |
 [2]oaic.gov.au

+61 2 9942 4145  |
[3][email address]
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be confidential information, and may also be the subject of legal
professional privilege. If you are not the intended recipient any use,
disclosure or copying of this email is unauthorised. If you received this
email in error, please notify the sender by contacting the department's
switchboard on 1300 488 064 during business hours (8:30am - 5pm Canberra
time) and delete all copies of this transmission together with any
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References

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8. https://aus01.safelinks.protection.outlo...

OAIC - Legal, Office of the Australian Information Commissioner

7 Attachments

OAIC ref: FOIREQ22/00120

 

Dear Julie

 

Please find attached the third and fourth part of the document bundle
being released to you in relation to your FOI request (FOIREQ22/00120). 

 

This is email 3 of 4.

 

Kind regards

Margaret

 

 

[1]O A I C logo   Margaret Sui |  Senior Lawyer

Legal Services

Office of the Australian
Information Commissioner

GPO Box 5218 Sydney NSW 2001  |
 [2]oaic.gov.au

+61 2 9942 4145  |
[3][email address]
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be confidential information, and may also be the subject of legal
professional privilege. If you are not the intended recipient any use,
disclosure or copying of this email is unauthorised. If you received this
email in error, please notify the sender by contacting the department's
switchboard on 1300 488 064 during business hours (8:30am - 5pm Canberra
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References

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OAIC - Legal, Office of the Australian Information Commissioner

OAIC reference: FOIREQ22/00140

 

Dear Julie,

 

I refer to your email of 6 June 2022.

 

I acknowledge receipt of your application for internal review of the
OAIC’s FOI decision of 2 June 2022.

 

Section 54C of the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (Cth) requires this
office to make a fresh decision within 30 days after the day we received
your application.

 

Because we received your application on 6 June 2022, we must make a fresh
decision by 6 July 2022.

 

If you have any questions, please contact me via [1][email address].

 

Kind regards,
Emma Liddle

Director Legal

 

Notice:

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be confidential information, and may also be the subject of legal
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Dear OAIC - Legal,

That is a very high number of FOI complaints the OAIC has received about the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Has the OAIC received over 100 foi complaints about any other foi agency? I'm just trying to gauge how much of an outlier this is.

Yours sincerely,

Julie

OAIC - Legal, Office of the Australian Information Commissioner

7 Attachments

OAIC reference: FOIREQ22/00140

 

Dear Julie

 

Please find a decision and schedule attached.

 

As explained in the decision record, I have not decided to provide you
with access to additional material on internal review. The relevant
documents were supplied to you in response to FOIREQ22/00120. Please
advise if you wish to receive these documents again.

 

Kind regards

Emma.

 

[1]O A I C logo   Emma Liddle  | Director, Legal

Office of the Australian
Information Commissioner

GPO Box 5218 Sydney NSW 2001  |
 oaic.gov.au

+61 2 9942 4153  |
 [2][email address]
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From: OAIC - Legal
Sent: Tuesday, 14 June 2022 3:34 PM
To: [FOI #8854 email]
Subject: Your request to the OAIC – FOIREQ22/00140

 

OAIC reference: FOIREQ22/00140

 

Dear Julie,

 

I refer to your email of 6 June 2022.

 

I acknowledge receipt of your application for internal review of the
OAIC’s FOI decision of 2 June 2022.

 

Section 54C of the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (Cth) requires this
office to make a fresh decision within 30 days after the day we received
your application.

 

Because we received your application on 6 June 2022, we must make a fresh
decision by 6 July 2022.

 

If you have any questions, please contact me via [8][email address].

 

Kind regards,
Emma Liddle

Director Legal

 

Notice:

The information contained in this email message and any attached files may
be confidential information, and may also be the subject of legal
professional privilege. If you are not the intended recipient any use,
disclosure or copying of this email is unauthorised. If you received this
email in error, please notify the sender by contacting the department's
switchboard on 1300 488 064 during business hours (8:30am - 5pm Canberra
time) and delete all copies of this transmission together with any
attachments.

References

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7. https://aus01.safelinks.protection.outlo...
8. mailto:[email address]

Julie left an annotation ()

On 1 July I asked the OAIC "Has the OAIC received over 100 foi complaints about any other foi agency? I'm just trying to gauge how much of an outlier this is."

Instead of giving an answer the OAIC instead referred me to documents which do not provide any information sufficient to answer that question.

It is disappointing (but sadly not surprising) that the OAIC continue to go to lengths to avoid scrutiny and prevent transparency.

Details on the number of s 55G substituting decisions the OAIC approves (which now exceed 200 a month on average) or the number of foi complaints the OAIC receives should be published by the OAIC itself, not fought against when requested by FOI.