New South Wales Consolidated Acts

INDEPENDENT PRICING AND REGULATORY TRIBUNAL ACT 1992 - SECT 22A

22A Making submissions and documents available to public

(1) The Tribunal must make a document obtained by the Tribunal in connection with an investigation (including any submission given to the Tribunal under section 21 and any statement or document given to the Tribunal under section 22) available for inspection on request by any person, unless the document is an exempt document within the meaning of the Freedom of Information Act 1989 .

(2) The Tribunal may make such a document available for inspection on request by any person who the Tribunal considers has an interest in the investigation to which the document relates, despite the fact that the document is an exempt document within the meaning of the Freedom of Information Act 1989 . However, the Tribunal may only do that if the Tribunal:

(a) has given the person that gave the document to the Tribunal (and, in the case of a document that is an agreement registered under section 12C, the parties to the agreement) an opportunity to make a submission to the Tribunal on whether the document should be made available, and

(b) has considered the submission (if any), and

(c) is satisfied that making the document available could not reasonably be expected to damage the commercial or other interests of the State or of the person that gave it to the Tribunal (or, in the case of a document that is an agreement registered under section 12C, of the parties to the agreement) or of any other person.

(3) The Tribunal may, in making a document available (or instead of refusing to make a document available) under this section, do all or any of the following:

(a) make parts of the document available to the public, being parts that would, if they stood alone, constitute documents that the Tribunal must or may, in accordance with this section, make available to the public,

(b) make the document available after deleting parts of the document that would otherwise prevent its availability under this section,

(c) impose conditions on the availability of part or all of a document (for example, conditions limiting the availability to certain classes of persons or requiring persons not to reveal the contents of the part or document).

(4) In its deliberations under subsection (2), the Tribunal may take into account the likely effect of conditions that the Tribunal might impose under subsection (3).

(5) A person to whom a document is made available under subsection (2) must not infringe any condition to which that availability is subject under this section.

Maximum penalty: 100 penalty units.

(6) Nothing in this section limits the operation of section 21 (5) (b).