Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

The Minister for Defence has provided the following answer to the honourable senator ' s question:

(1) During the period 1 July to 31 December 2010, Defence received 156 FOI requests. One hundred and fifty-three were requested under Section 15 (access to documents) and three under Section 48 (amendment or annotation of personal records) of the FOI Act.

(2) One hundred and forty-five FOI requests were finalised between 1 July and

31 December 2010. The following tables provide a breakdown of these requests:

Section 15 requests completed

Section 48 requests completed

(3) There were no conclusive certificates issued in relation to FOI requests during the period 1 July to 31 December 2010. The power to issue conclusive certificates was repealed when the Freedom of Information (Removal of Conclusive Certificates and Other Measures) Act 2009 came into effect on 7 October 2009.

Notes

1 Where a document is identified and exempted in full, access to the document can be denied, with reference to the relevant exemption provisions of the FOI Act. During the period in question, two denials related to documents to which Section 38 (secrecy provisions) applied and two denials related to documents to which Section 41 (personal privacy provisions) applied.

2 Section 24A of the FOI Act provides for requests for access to documents to be refused if the documents cannot be found or does not exist. Access may also be refused if the work involved in processing the request would substantially and unreasonably divert resources of an agency. For the period in question, eight refusals related to documents that do not exist or cannot be found and one refusal related to a request which would have substantially and unreasonably diverted the resources of the Department.

3 Section 51 of the FOI Act provides that where an agency refused to amend records under Section 48, the agency must offer to annotate the record. No applicants accepted this offer.

Please Note:

This response covers Senate Questions on Notice 497, 498 and 499 for the Minister for Defence, the Minister for Defence Science and Personnel and the Minister for Defence Materiel. All Freedom of Information requests for all agencies have been handled by the Directorate of Freedom of Information at the Department of Defence.