Freedom of information requests

Overview

The Freedom of Information Act 1982 (FOI Act) gives you the right to:

• access copies of documents (except exempt documents) we hold
• ask for information we hold about you to be changed or annotated if it is incomplete, out of date, incorrect or misleading, and
• seek a review of our decision not to allow you access to a document or not to amend your personal record.

You can ask to see any document that we hold. We can refuse access to some documents, or parts of documents that are exempt. Exempt documents may include those relating to national security, documents containing material obtained in confidence, material that is commercial-in-confidence, Cabinet documents, or other matters set out in the FOI Act.

Unless information is personal or commercial and publication would be 'unreasonable", any information provided in response to an FOI request will be listed in the Department of Health's FOI disclosure log. It may also be published on a website, or if it not practical to do so, provided on request.

Documents available outside the FOI Act

You should check the information we have published under the Information Publication Scheme and FOI Disclosure Log to see if the information you are seeking is already available.

How to make a request

Your request must:

• be in writing
• state that the request is an application for the purposes of the FOI Act
• provide sufficient information about the document(s) to allow us to process your request
• provide an address for reply.

You can send your request either:

If you ask a third party to make an FOI request on your behalf, you need to provide a specific, written authority to send copies of documents to you, care of that person, or to allow that person to inspect copies of documents containing information about you.

If you require more information, please contact the FOI Contact Officer by emailing foi@health.gov.au or calling the Department of Health on 1800 020 103 or 02 6289 1555.

Fees and charges

There is no application fee for an FOI request.

There are no processing charges for requests for access to documents containing only personal information about you. However, processing charges may apply to other requests. The most common charges are:

If we decide to impose a charge, we will give you a written estimate and the basis of our calculation. Where the estimated charge is between $20 and $100, we may ask you to pay a deposit of $20, or where the estimated charge exceeds $100, we may ask you to pay a 25% deposit before we process your request.

You can ask for the charge to be waived or reduced for any reason, including financial hardship or on the grounds of public interest. If you do so, you should explain your reasons and you may need to provide some evidence.

What you can expect from us

We will tell you within 14 days that we have received your request and give you an estimate of the charges that apply to your request. We will give you our decision within 30 days unless that time has been extended. If a document contains information about a third party and we need to consult them, the time to give you our decision will be extended by another 30 days. We may also seek your agreement to extend the time by up to 30 days if your request is complex.

Unless the information is personal or is about the commercial, financial or professional affairs of a person and publication would be "unreasonable", any information provided to you in response to your request will be listed in the Disclosure Log and published or otherwise made available to anyone who requests access.

If you disagree with our decision

When we have made a decision about your FOI request, we will send you a letter explaining our decision and your review and appeal rights.

You can ask for the following decisions to be reviewed:

• if we refuse to give you access to all or part of a document or if we defer giving you access
• if we impose a charge
• if we refuse to change or annotate information about you that you claim is incomplete, incorrect, out of date or misleading.

A third party who disagrees with our decision to give you documents that contain information about them can also ask for our decision about that information to be reviewed.

Internal review

You can request in writing that we reconsider our decision through an internal review. An internal review will be conducted by another officer in our agency. We will advise you of our new decision within 30 days of receiving your request.

Information Commissioner review

You can ask the Australian Information Commissioner to review our original decision or our decision on internal review within 60 days of the date of decision (or 30 days after you are notified if you are an affected third party). The Information Commissioner can affirm or vary the decision or substitute a new decision. The Information Commissioner may decide not to conduct a review in certain circumstances. More information is available at the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) website.

Complaints

If you are unhappy with the way we have handled your request, you can complain to the Australian Information Commissioner who may investigate our actions. More information is available on the OAIC's website. The Commonwealth Ombudsman can also investigate complaints about our actions. However, the Commonwealth Ombudsman and the Information Commissioner will consult to avoid the same matter being investigated twice.

More information

If you require more information, please contact the FOI Contact Officer by emailing foi@health.gov.au or calling the Department of Health and Aged Care on 1800 020 103 or 02 6289 1555.