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Freedom of Information
Your rights
Under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (FOI Act), members of the public have the right to:
- access copies of documents we hold, other than exempt documents
- ask for information we hold about you to be changed or annotated if it is incomplete, out of date, incorrect or misleading, and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.
Exempt documents may include those relating to national security, documents containing material obtained in confidence and Cabinet documents, or other matters set out in the FOI Act.
Documents available outside the FOI Act
Some information, including any personal information we hold about you, may be obtainable without having to make an application under the FOI Act. You should also check the information we have published under the Information Publication Scheme to see if what you are seeking is already available.
Contact the Council's FOI Officer on (03) 9981 1600 or to find out if the information you require is available without the need to make an FOI application.
How to make a request
If you require access to a document we hold that we have not already published, you may make a request under the FOI Act. Your request must:
- be in writing
- state that the request is an application for the purposes of the FOI Act
- provide as much information about the document(s) you seek to enable us to identify and locate the relevant documents, and
- provide an address for reply.
Your request should be sent to:
By post
FOI Officer
National Competition Council
GPO Box 250
Melbourne Victoria 3001
By email
If you require assistance with your request, please contact the FOI Officer on (03) 9981 1600 or by email at .
Fees and charges
There is no fee for making an FOI application and no processing charges apply 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 | 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 we decide to impose a charge, we will give you a written estimate including the basis of our calculation. Before we process your request we may ask you to pay a deposit of $20 (where the estimated charge is between $20 and $100) or 25% of the estimated charge (where the estimated charge exceeds $100).
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.
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 the 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.
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.
If you disagree with our decision
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.
Complaints
If you are unhappy with the way we have handled your request, you can complain 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 Officer on 03 9981 1600 or by email at .
Any documents we release under the FOI Act and information about our contribution to the Information Publication Scheme can be obtained on the Information Publication Scheme page.
