Western Australian Consolidated Acts Western Australian Consolidated Acts (1) Any charge that
is, in accordance with the regulations, required to be paid by an applicant
before access to a document is given, must be calculated by an agency in
accordance with the following principles or, where those principles require,
must be waived —
(a) a
charge must only cover the time that would be spent by the agency in
conducting a routine search for the document to which access is requested, and
must not cover additional time, if any, spent by the agency in searching for a
document that was lost or misplaced;
(b) the
charge in relation to time made under paragraph (a) must be fixed on an
hourly rate basis;
(c) a
charge may be made for the identifiable cost incurred in supervising the
inspection by the applicant of the matter to which access is granted;
(d) no
charge may be made for providing an applicant with access to personal
information about the applicant;
(e) a
charge may be made for the reasonable costs incurred by an agency in supplying
copies of documents, in making arrangements for viewing documents or in
providing a written transcript of the words recorded or contained in
documents;
(f) a
charge must not be made for producing for inspection a document referred to in
section 94 or 95;
(g) a
charge must be waived or be reduced if the applicant is impecunious; and
(h) a
charge must not exceed such amount as may be prescribed by regulation from
time to time.
(2) Subject to
section 18, payment of a charge will not be required before the time at
which the agency has notified the applicant of the decision to grant access to
a document.
[Section 16 amended by No. 57 of 1997
s. 62(1).]