EXPLANATORY STATEMENT
Statutory Rules 1985 No. 113
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION (CHARGES) REGULATIONS (AMENDMENT)
These Regulations, made under section 94 of the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (“the Act”), amend the Freedom of Information (Charges) Regulations.
Section 94 of the Act empowers the Governor-General to make regulations for and in relation to the making of charges of amounts, or at rates, fixed by or in accordance with the regulations in respect of requests for access to documents or in respect of the provision of access to documents, including requiring deposits on account of such charges.
Sub-section 94(2) fixes certain parameters for any regulations made in relation to charges under section 94 -
(a) the amounts or rates of charge may not be different with respect to different classes of applicants for access or with respect to different agencies or different classes of agencies;
(b) they may not require a charge to be paid in respect of the time spent in examining a document to determine whether it contains exempt matter;
(c) any charge that is made for time spent in searching for or retrieving a document shall be calculated at a single hourly rate applicable uniformly to all agencies regardless of the classification or designation of the officer who searches for or retrieves the document; and
(d) the charges may include an amount for the direct costs incurred by an agency in providing an officer to supervise personal inspection by a person of a document for which a request for access has been made under the Act.
The proposed Regulations are in accordance with these requirements.
The proposed Regulations effect significant changes to the existing scheme of charges so that:
(a) charges for requests are determined on the basis of a fixed charge of $20 in respect of the administrative handling of a request, plus a charge at the rate of $30 per hour for the time spent in searching for or retrieving the documents involved;
(b) there is no charge for requests made for access to documents relating to a claim for, or a decision in relation to, any income support payment unless a period of less than 3 months has elapsed since the person was last given access to those documents and there has been no change to the documents;
(c) before any substantive work is done in response to a request, an applicant may be required to pay a deposit which is not less than 50% of the estimated charges in respect of the provision of access or in respect of a request for access, such as for search and retrieval time or actual costs incurred in producing a document by use of a computer (other than the fixed charge of $20 in respect of the administrative handling of a request, the whole of which is to be paid in accordance with section 29 of the Act and regulation 3 of the Principal Regulations);
(d) special provisions in the existing charges scheme which in certain circumstances applied a maximum charge of $25 for requests seeking access to photocopies of written documents and no charge for requests seeking personal affairs documents are repealed; and
(e) the level of charges where supervision is to be provided of personal inspection is increased to $8 per half hour and to $5 per page of transcript where a transcript is made of shorthand notes or sound recordings.
The proposed Regulations provide that the amendments are to apply to requests received on or after 1 July 1985.