Freedom of Information (FOI)

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• ask for information we hold about you to be changed or annotated if it is incomplete, out of date, incorrect or misleading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

Making an FOI request

Your requests to access documents must:

• be in writing
• state that the application is made under the FOI Act
• provide enough information for us to find the documents, and
• give details of how we can contact you (postal or email address).

Applications to the agency may be sent in one of the following ways:

Email: foi@sportintegrity.gov.au

Pre-paid post:

FOI Contact Officer
Legal Services
Sport Integrity Australia
PO Box 1744
FYSHWICK ACT 2609

Charges

There is no fee for making an FOI request. However, the FOI Act allows us to charge you for processing requests (except where you are seeking documents containing your own personal information). Should your FOI request incur any charges, we will give you a cost estimate. Your request will not proceed until your response to the estimate is received.

We may decide to remit, reduce or not impose processing charges under certain circumstances.

What happens after your application is submitted?

We will acknowledge receipt of your FOI request within 14 days of receiving it. If you are liable to pay a processing charge, we will send you a cost estimate.

Our FOI Contact Officer will process the application in accordance with the requirements of the FOI Act. An authorised decision-maker will make a decision about access to the documents generally within 30 days of receiving your request.

In some cases, we may seek an extension of time to process your request from you or the Australian Information Commissioner. If we need to consult with a third party about a document that contains information about them, we will have an additional 30 days to provide you with a decision on your request.

When we have made a decision about your FOI request, we will send a letter explaining our decision and outlining your review and appeal rights and make arrangements for you to be given access to any documents to be released to you.

If you disagree with our decision

You can ask for the following decisions to be reviewed where we:

• refuse to give you access to all or part of a document or we defer giving you access
• impose a charge
• refuse to change or annotate information about you that you claim is incomplete, incorrect, out of date or misleading.

Any third parties involved in your request 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 decision maker in our agency. We will advise you of our internal review decision within 30 days of receiving your request.

Review by the Information Commissioner

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 Australian Information Commissioner can affirm or vary the decision or substitute a new decision. The Australian 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 that 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.

FOI Disclosure Log

All Australian Government agencies are required to publish a list of documents obtained under FOI, within 10 working days of the applicant receiving the documents.

Our FOI disclosure log contains documents released under the FOI Act that can be downloaded. If the documents are in a format you cannot access, you can contact us for help.

Via post:

FOI Contact Officer
Legal Services
Sport Integrity Australia
PO Box 1744
FYSHWICK ACT 2609

Via email: 

foi@sportintegrity.gov.au

Exceptions to FOI disclosure

We can refuse access to documents, or parts of documents that are exempt under the FOI Act. Exempt documents may include those relating to national security, documents containing material obtained in confidence and Cabinet documents, or other matters as set out in the FOI Act, such as:

• personal information about any person if release of that information would be 'unreasonable'.
• information about the business, commercial, financial, or professional affairs of any person if release of that information would be 'unreasonable'.
• other information, covered by a determination made by the Australian Information Commissioner, if release of that information would be 'unreasonable'.
• any information if it is not reasonably practicable to release the information because of the extent of modifications that would need to be made to delete exempt information.

More information

If you need more information, please email: foi@sportintegrity.gov.au