Our reference: FOI 22/23-0455
GPO Box 700 Canberra ACT 2601 1800 800 110
dis.gov.au
25 November 2022
Oliver Lee
By email: foi+request-9346-4c50297b@righttoknow.org.au
Dear Oliver Lee
Freedom of Information request — Request consultation process
Thank you for your correspondence of 6 September 2022, in which you requested access under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (FOI Act) to documents held by the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA).
Scope of your request You have requested access to the following documents:
“…all ministerial briefings prepared for the Hon Bill Shorten since coming into office this year.”
Practical refusal I am authorised to make decisions under section 23(1) of the FOI Act.
I am writing to advise that your request does not provide enough information about the documents you are seeking access to, and in its current form is likely to result in a substantial and unreasonable diversion of resources. This is called a ‘practical refusal reason’ under section 24AA of the FOI Act.
On this basis, I intend to refuse your request. However, before I make a final decision, I am writing to provide you with an opportunity to revise your request. This is called a ‘request consultation process’ as set out under section 24AB of the FOI Act. You have 14 days to respond to this notice in one of the ways set out below.
Why I intend to refuse your request We have conducted preliminary searches of the NDIA’s systems, using all reasonable search terms that could return documents relevant to your request. In addition, we have consulted with relevant NDIA staff who could be expected to be able to identify documents within the scope of the request, including staff who are knowledgeable about how to conduct searches of the NDIA’s systems. Those searches indicate that the NDIA has more than 1,000 documents that may be relevant to your request. This outcome shows that the terms of your request do not provide sufficient information to allow us to identify the specific documents that you are seeking.
Request consultation process
1You now have an opportunity to revise your request to enable it to proceed.
Revising your request can mean narrowing the scope of the request to make it more manageable or explaining in more detail the documents you wish to access. For example, by providing more specific information about exactly what documents you are interested in, the NDIA will be able to pinpoint the documents more quickly and avoid using excessive resources to process documents you are not interested in.
To reduce the scope of your request, you might like to consider:
- The most recent Ministerial Brief prior to your FOI request.
You have 14 days from the date you receive this letter to contact me and do one of the following:
a. withdraw your request b. make a revised request c. indicate that you do not wish to revise the request.
During this period, you are welcome to seek assistance to revise your request. If you revise your request in a way that adequately addresses the practical refusal reason outlined above, we will recommence processing it.
Please note that the time taken to consult with you regarding the scope of your request is not taken into account for the purposes of the timeframe for processing your request.
You can contact me by email at foi@ndis.gov.au.
Alternatively, you can reply in writing to the following address:
Freedom of Information Section Parliamentary, Ministerial & FOI Branch Government Division National Disability Insurance Agency GPO Box 700 CANBERRA ACT 2601
If you do not contact me within this period, that is by 9 December 2022, your FOI request will be taken to have been withdrawn under subsection 24AB(7) and will not be dealt with any further.
Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.
Yours sincerely
Kylie Acting Assistant Director FOI - Strategy Parliamentary, Ministerial & FOI Branch Government Division