I recently made an FOI request to the Australian Commonwealth Department of the Environment – for correspondence relating to the collapse of the NT Henbury Station (owned by RM Williams) carbon farming scheme. Where we are told the Commonwealth had invested $9mill of your precious tax dollars.
I requested under FOI – correspondence for 2011-12 and got back a letter saying how very difficult and time-consuming it all would be and quoting me a charge of $3,562.05 which is mostly “decision-making time”, 157.42hrs at $20 per hr = $3,148.45.
Four and a half weeks “decision-making” assuming a 35hr week.
Does anybody know of any public service “decision makers” on the princely pay of $20 per hr – I am no authority on current pay rates – would some cleaners work for that ?
If you are really interested in pursuing it you might try asking them for a waiver of the fee. If that is rejected, put in a separate FOI requesting information on all fee waivers they have granted.
This is a joke. All these documents should be recorded electronically and be searched for, a list produced in minutes and available for the appropriate official of sufficient rank to review at the touch of a button. The 157.42 hours to review the documents is probably longer than it took to decide to proceed with the project. So much for transparency in government and public servants serving the public.