A Bill for an Act to amend the Freedom of Information Act 1982, and for related purposes
The Parliament of Australia enacts:
1 Short title
This Act may be cited as the Freedom of Information Amendment (Requests and Reasons) Act 2015.
2 Commencement
(1) Each provision of this Act specified in column 1 of the table commences, or is taken to have commenced, in accordance with column 2 of the table. Any other statement in column 2 has effect according to its terms.
| Commencement information |
| Column 1 | Column 2 | Column 3 |
| Provisions | Commencement | Date/Details |
| 1. Sections 1 to 3 and anything in this Act not elsewhere covered by this table | The day this Act receives the Royal Assent. | |
| 2. Schedule 1 | The day after the end of the period of 3 months beginning on the day this Act receives the Royal Assent. | |
Note: This table relates only to the provisions of this Act as originally enacted. It will not be amended to deal with any later amendments of this Act.
(2) Any information in column 3 of the table is not part of this Act. Information may be inserted in this column, or information in it may be edited, in any published version of this Act.
3 Schedules
Legislation that is specified in a Schedule to this Act is amended or repealed as set out in the applicable items in the Schedule concerned, and any other item in a Schedule to this Act has effect according to its terms.
Schedule 1—Amendments
Freedom of Information Act 1982
1 Subsection 4(1)
Insert:
working day, in relation to a requirement in a provision of this Act to publish information, means a day that is not:
(a) a Saturday; or
(b) a Sunday; or
(c) a public holiday in the place where the function of publishing the information under the provision is to be performed.
2 Paragraph 11C(3)(b)
Omit “downloaded; or”, substitute “downloaded.”.
3 Paragraph 11C(3)(c)
Repeal the paragraph.
4 Subsection 11C(7)
Repeal the subsection.
5 After section 11C
Insert:
11D Publication of requests and reasons
Scope
(1) This section applies if a person makes a request referred to in paragraph 11A(1)(a) for access to a document of an agency or an official document of a Minister (whether or not the document or official document exists), other than a request for access to the person’s personnel records (within the meaning of section 15A).
Publication
(2) If the agency or Minister decides to give the person access to the document in accordance with this Act, the agency or Minister must publish the request and the reasons for the decision before the end of 10 working days after the day the person is given access to the document.
(3) If the agency or Minister decides to give the person access to an edited copy of the document in accordance with section 22, the agency or Minister must:
(a) publish the request, and the notice under subsection 22(3), within 10 working days after the day the decision is made; and
(b) if the person makes a request under subsection 22(4) for the agency or Minister to give the person a notice in accordance with section 26 in relation to the request—publish the notice given in accordance with section 26 within 10 working days after the notice is given.
(4) If the agency or Minister decides not to give the person access to the document in accordance with this Act (and does not decide to give the person access to an edited copy of the document in accordance with section 22), the agency or Minister must:
(a) publish the request within 10 working days after the day the decision is made; and
(b) publish the notice given in accordance with section 26 in relation to the request within 10 working days after the notice is given.
(5) The agency, or the Minister, must publish (without charge) the request, reasons or notice to members of the public generally on a website by:
(a) making the request, reasons or notice available for downloading from the website; or
(b) publishing on the website a link to another website, from which the request, reasons or notice can be downloaded.
Certain information to be removed
(6) The agency or Minister must, before publishing a request, reasons or a notice under this section, remove from the request, reasons or notice any of the following information:
(a) information that would, at the time the request, reasons or notice is to be published, cause the request, reasons or notice to be an exempt document;
(b) personal information about the person who made the request;
(c) personal information about any other person, if it would be unreasonable to publish the information;
(d) information about the business, commercial, financial or professional affairs of any person, if it would be unreasonable to publish the information;
(e) other information of a kind determined by the Information Commissioner under subsection 11C(2), if it would be unreasonable to publish the information.
6 Application
The amendments made by this Act apply in relation to requests referred to in paragraph 11A(1)(a) of the Freedom of Information Act 1982 that are made on or after the day this item commences.