Australian Law/Freedom of Information/Commonwealth/Process
This page sets out the distinct stages in the process of making and determining a request for access to documents under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (Cth). Suppose you had a filing system for FOI requests with a 'status' field for each request; the value of that field would be something from the list below.
This page uses the term 'agency' to cover both 'agency' and 'Minister'. 'IC' is the Australian Information Commissioner. 'AAT' is the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.
| Stage | Legislation | FOI Guidelines |
|---|---|---|
| Applicant makes application | s 15 | ... |
| Agency acknowledges receipt of request | s 15(5)(a) | |
| Request waits to be allocated to FOI officer | N/A | |
| Agency works on request | N/A | - |
| Applicant decides whether to grant extension of time | s 15AA | |
| IC decides whether to grant extension of time (complex/voluminous) | s 15AB | |
| Commonwealth consults a State | s 26A | |
| Agency consults person whose business information is in documents | s 27 | |
| Agency consults person whose personal information is in documents | s 27A | |
| Agency makes preliminary assessment of charge | s 29(1) | |
| Applicant contests charge | s 29(1)(f) | |
| Agency decides charge | s 29(4)-(8) | |
| Applicant pays deposit | s 31(2) | |
| Applicant pays charge | s 11A(1)(b) | |
| Agency defers access | s 21 | |
| Applicant decides whether to request internal review | s 54B | |
| Application for internal review waits for allocation | s 54C(2) | |
| Agency makes fresh decision on request | s 54C | |
| Applicant decides whether to request IC review | s 54N | |
| IC decides whether to conduct IC review | s 54W | |
| IC decides on IC review | s 55K | |
| Parties decide whether to appeal to Federal Court or request review by AAT | ss 56, 57A | |
| Federal Court appeal (and appeals therefrom, etc) | s 56 | |
| AAT review (and appeals therefrom, etc) | s 58 | |
| Agency provides access to documents | s 20 | |
| Agency publishes information from documents on Disclosure Log (excluding any personal or business information of the applicant contained in the documents) | s 11C | |
| Applicant complains to IC, Ombudsman, the Senate and the United Nations Human Rights Committee | TBC | |
| Applicant blogs | N/A | |
| Application is done with | N/A |