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Freedom of information

 

Your rights

The Freedom of Information (FOI) Act 1982 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  • ask for information we hold about you to be changed or annotated if it is incomplete, out of date, incorrect or misleading, and 
  • seek a review of our decision not to allow you access to a document or not to amend your personal record.

You can ask to see any document that we hold. We can refuse access to some documents, or parts of documents that are exempt. Exempt documents may include those containing material obtained in confidence or other matters set out in the FOI Act.

Documents available outside the FOI Act

You can get certain information, including personal information we hold about you, without following a formal process under the FOI Act. For example, you may wish to seek information on your case record.

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.

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How to make a 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 need to access to assist us to process your request 
  • provide an address for reply.

For information on how you can access your case record or information about how CRS Australia operates please:

If you ask a third party to make an FOI request on your behalf, you need to provide a specific, written authority to send copies of documents to you, care of that person, or to allow that person to inspect copies of documents containing information about you.

If you require assistance with your request, please contact the FOI Coordinator on 02 6211 6900 or by email at foi@crsaustralia.gov.au.

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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. 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 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 $20 and $100, we may ask you to pay a deposit of $20, or where the estimated charge exceeds $100, we may ask you to pay a 25% deposit before we process your request.

You can ask for the charge to be waived or reduced for any reason, including financial hardship or on the grounds of public interest. If you do so, you should explain your reasons and you may need to provide some evidence.

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What you can expect from us

We will tell you within 14 days that we have received your request. We will also give you an estimate of any charges that apply to your request. We will give you our decision within 30 days unless that time has been extended. If a document contains information about a third party, we will need to consult them and 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.

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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 for the following decisions to be reviewed:

  • if we refuse to give you access to all or part of a document or if we defer giving you access 
  • if we impose a charge 
  • if 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.

Internal review 

You can request in writing that we reconsider our decision through an internal review. An internal review will be conducted by another officer in our agency. 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 within 60 days of the date of decision (or 30 days after you are notified 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 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 make a complaint to the Australian Information Commissioner who may investigate our actions. More information is available on the OAIC’s website at www.oaic.gov.au. The Commonwealth Ombudsman can also investigate complaints about our actions. However, the Commonwealth Ombudsman and the Information Commissioner will consult to avoid the same matter being investigated twice.

More information

If you require more information, please contact the FOI Coordinator on 02 6211 6900 or by email at foi@crsaustralia.gov.au. 

Certain documents that we have released under the FOI Act can be obtained at our FOI disclosure log page. Information about our Information Publication Scheme can be obtained below.
 

Back to topCRS Australia's Operational Information

See the DHS Information Publication Scheme page.

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Legislation