Miller and Chief Executive Officer, Services Australia (Freedom of information)

The Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) reviewed a decision concerning a Freedom of Information (FOI) request made by the applicant. The applicant sought to ascertain the location from which four specific documents, related to a historical personal injury claim, were sent to Medicare Compensation Recovery in 2011. The respondent, the Chief Executive Officer of Services Australia, had previously determined that all reasonable steps had been taken to locate the documents, and that they either did not exist or could not be found within the agency's possession.

The central legal issues before the Tribunal were whether the respondent had taken all reasonable steps to find the requested documents, and if so, whether the Tribunal was satisfied that these documents were in the respondent's possession but could not be located, or that they did not exist at all. These questions were to be determined in accordance with subsection 24A(1) of the *Freedom of Information Act 1982* (Cth). The Tribunal's jurisdiction to review the Information Commissioner's decision was established under section 57A of the FOI Act.

The Tribunal considered various exhibits, including the respondent's Statement of Facts Issues and Contentions, documents from the applicant, and affidavits from officers of Services Australia. The applicant's request, made in January 2021, specified four documents from 1996 and 1997, which she believed were archived by the NSW Department of Health and later sent to Medicare Compensation Recovery. She contended that these documents, and her associated file, must still exist as no documents can be destroyed without electronic notes. The applicant also provided details of her interactions with agency staff and an archives manager, suggesting that the documents were faxed or sent internally, and that barcodes and reference numbers on the documents might indicate their archived location.

The Tribunal affirmed the decision under review.