The Freedom of Information Act 1982 (the FOI Act) gives you the right to request access to information held by government.
The FOI Act gives you the right to:
- request access to copies of documents we hold including information we hold about you
- request corrections to personal information if you think it is wrong, and
- seek a review of our decision not to allow you access to a document or not to amend your personal record.
You also have rights when someone requests a document containing information about you or your business under the FOI Act.
Your request will be considered, and any documents found to be in scope of the request will be reviewed. Documents, or parts thereof, can be exempt from access on a number of grounds.
Documents available outside the FOI Act
You can access some information without following a formal process under the FOI Act. You can find information on our website, other government websites and on the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) website.
You should also check the information we have published under the Information Publication Scheme and FOI disclosure log to see if what you are seeking is already available.
How to make an FOI request
Your request must:
- be in writing
- state that the request is an application for the purposes of the FOI Act
- provide information about the document(s) you wish to access so that we can process your request
- provide an address for reply.
Addressing all of this information will allow us to assess your request and respond as soon as possible. There may be delays in processing your request if any information above is not provided.
You can send your request:
By email
By post
FOI Coordinator
National Anti-Corruption Commission
GPO Box 605
CANBERRA ACT 2601
AUSTRALIA
If you are making an FOI request on behalf of another person, you need to provide written authority from that person. This must include permission to send copies of documents to you or to allow you to inspect copies of documents containing information about the other person.
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. Processing charges may apply to other types of 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 an agency 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) |
| Delivery : posting or delivering a copy of a document at your request | Cost of postage or delivery |
If there is a charge, we will give you a written estimate and the basis of our calculation. Where the estimated charge is between $25 and $100, we may ask you to pay a deposit of $20. Where the estimated charge exceeds $100, we may ask you to pay a 25% deposit before we process your request.
You can ask us to waive or reduce the charge for any reason including financial hardship or on the grounds of public interest. You should explain your reasons, and you may need to provide some evidence.
What you can expect from us
We will tell you we have received your request within 14 days. We will also give you an estimate of the charges that apply to your request.
We will give you our decision within 30 days unless that time is extended. If a document contains information about a third party, we will need to consult them. This means we may need to extend the time to give you our decision by another 30 days. We may also seek your agreement to extend the time by up to 30 days if your request is complex.
We can refuse access to some documents or parts of documents that are exempt. Exempt documents may relate to law enforcement, national security, documents containing material obtained in confidence and Cabinet documents, or other matters set out in the FOI Act.
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 us to review the following decisions:
- if we refuse to give you access to all or part of a document
- if we impose a charge
- if we refuse to make corrections to personal information about you that you claim is wrong.
A third party who disagrees with our decision to give you documents containing information about them can also ask for our decision to be reviewed.
Internal review
You can request in writing that we reconsider our decision through an internal review. Another officer in our agency will conduct an internal review. 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. You can do this within 60 days of the date of decision, or 30 days after we notify you 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 from the OAIC website.
Complaints
If you are unhappy with the way we have handled your request, you can complain to the Australian Information Commissioner. More information is available on the OAIC website. The Commonwealth Ombudsman and the NACC Inspector can also investigate complaints about our actions. The Commonwealth Ombudsman and the Information Commissioner will consult to avoid the same matter being investigated twice.
Amendment of records in relation to sex or gender
You can use section 48 of the FOI Act to seek amendment to records we hold containing information about your sex and gender. In such requests, we will have regard to the Australian Government Guidelines on the Recognition of Sex and Gender in making our decision.
FOI Disclosure log
Under section 11C of the FOI Act, we are required to publish a disclosure log on our website. The disclosure log lists information we have released for public access in response to FOI requests.
There may be documents in the disclosure log that are currently not available in html format. If you are unable to read the format provided please email FOI@nacc.gov.au. We will try to meet all reasonable requests for an alternate format of the document in a timely manner and at the lowest reasonable cost to you.
More information
Visit the Freedom of information (FOI) page or email FOI@nacc.gov.au for more information about making an FOI request.