The
Freedom of Information Act 1982 (Cth) (the FOI Act) gives the Australian community access to information held by the Australian Government, limited only by specific exemptions and exceptions set out in the FOI Act.
The FOI Act aims to achieve this objective by:
- requiring agencies to publish certain information on a website
- provide for a right of access to documents.
Contents
Right of access under the FOI Act
The FOI Act gives any person 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- ask for information we hold about you to be changed or annotated if it is incomplete, out of date, incorrect or misleading
- seek a review of our decision not to allow you access to a document or not to amend your personal record.
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 and Cabinet documents, or other matters set out in the FOI Act.
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How to make an FOI application
Applications for access to documents must:
- be in writing
- state that the application is made under the FOI Act
- provide enough information concerning the documents sought as is reasonably necessary to enable a responsible officer of the agency to identify them
- give details of how notices may be sent to the applicant (for example, a postal or email address).
Applications to the agency may be sent in one of the following ways:
Via email to the following address:
foi@cleanenergyregulator.gov.au
Via pre-paid post:
FOI Contact Officer
Legal Services and Governance
Clean Energy Regulator
GPO Box 621
CANBERRA ACT 2601
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Charges
There is no application fee for an FOI request and 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:
|
Activity item |
Charge |
|---|
| Search and retrieval: time we spend searching for or retrieving a document | $15.00 per hour |
| Decision making: time we spend in deciding to grant or refuse a request, including examining documents, consulting with other parties, and making deletions | First five hours: Nil Subsequent hours: $20 per hour |
| Transcript: preparing a transcript from a sound recording, shorthand or similar medium | $4.40 per page of transcript |
| Photocopy | $0.10 per page |
| Inspection: supervision by a Clean Energy Regulator officer of your inspection of documents or hearing or viewing an audio or visual recording at our premises | $6.25 per half hour (or part thereof) |
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What happens after your application is submitted?
- We will acknowledge receipt of your FOI request.
- An FOI officer will deal with your application in accordance with the requirements of the FOI Act and an authorised decision maker will make a decision on access to the documents you have requested.
- If you are liable to pay a processing charge we will send you an assessment of the charge as soon as practicable.
- 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.
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If you disagree with our decision
You can ask for the following decisions to be reviewed:
- decisions where we refuse to give you access to all or part of a document or we defer giving you access
- decisions where we impose a charge
- decisions where 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 to be reviewed.
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Internal review
You can request in writing that we reconsider our decision through an internal review. An internal review will be conducted by another decision maker in the Clean Energy Regulator. We will advise you of our new decision within 30 days of receiving your request.
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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 Australian Information Commissioner can affirm or vary the decision or substitute a new decision. The Australian 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 at
www.oaic.gov.au.
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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 website at
www.oaic.gov.au.
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More information
If you require more information, please contact a member of the FOI Team by email:
foi@cleanenergyregulator.gov.au.
Details about documents we have released under the FOI Act can be viewed at our
FOI disclosure log.
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