New South Wales Consolidated Acts

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 1989 - SECT 34

34 Internal review

(1) A person who is aggrieved by a determination made by an agency is entitled to a review of the determination.

(2) An application for review of a determination:

(a) shall be in writing, and

(b) shall be accompanied by such application fee as the agency may determine, and

(c) shall be addressed to the principal officer of the agency, and

(d) shall specify an address in Australia to which notices under this Act should be sent, and

(e) shall be lodged at an office of the agency:

(i) if notice of the determination was given to the applicant-within 28 days after that notice was given, or

(ii) if no notice of the determination was given to the applicant-within 49 days after the application was received by the agency, or

(iii) in any case, within such further time as the principal officer of the agency may allow.

(3) A person is not entitled to a review of:

(a) a determination of an application made under this section, or

(b) a determination that has been made by the principal officer of an agency.

(4) An application under this section shall be dealt with in accordance with this Part as if it were an application under section 17.

(5) An application under this section shall not be dealt with by the person who dealt with the original application under section 17 or by a person who is subordinate to that person.

(6) An agency that fails to determine an application made under this section within 14 days after it is received by the agency shall, for the purposes of this Act, be taken to have made a determination under section 24 refusing access to the document to which the application relates.

(7) For the purposes of this section, a person is aggrieved by a determination:

(a) if the determination relates to an application made by the person under section 17 and is to the effect that:

(i) an agency refuses to give the applicant access to a document, or

(ii) access to a document is to be given to the applicant subject to deferral, or

(iii) access to a copy of a document from which exempt matter has been deleted is to be given to the applicant, or

(iv) access to a document is to be given to the applicant subject to a charge for dealing with the application, or for giving access to a document, that the applicant considers to be unreasonable, or

(v) a charge for dealing with the application is payable by the applicant, being a charge that the applicant considers to have been unreasonably incurred, or

(b) if the determination relates to an application made by some other person under section 17 in respect of a document to which one or more of the provisions of Division 2 applies and:

(i) an agency should have, but has not, taken such steps as are reasonably practicable to obtain the views of the person as to whether or not the document is an exempt document by virtue of any one or more of the provisions of Part 2 of Schedule 1, or

(ii) an agency should have, and has, taken such steps, but the determination is not in accordance with the views of the person, or

(c) if the determination relates to an application made by the person under section 17 and is a determination that was taken to have been made by virtue of section 24 (2) (which provides that an agency that fails to determine an application within 21 days after the application was received by the agency is taken to have determined the application by refusing access to the document to which it relates).

(8) Subsections (3) (b) and (5) do not apply to the internal review of a determination that was taken to have been made by virtue of section 24 (2).