Decisions

Ahpra will provide you with a decision under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (Cth) (FOI Act) within 30 days of receiving your request (unless otherwise notified), which will contain:

• The reasons for the decision where partial or full access to a document is refused
• The name and official position of the person making the decision
• Details about how to seek review of the decision or how to make a complaint about the decision.

The decision maker may decide not to release documents to you, or may release only part of a document, for a number of reasons:

• The document contains irrelevant material that is outside the scope of your FOI request
• The document is exempt in full or in part under one or more provision in the FOI Act
• The document cannot be released to you until the expiration of a certain period of time
• The document cannot be found or does not exist
• Where the work involved in processing your FOI request would substantially and unreasonably divert Ahpra’s resources from its other operations.

Conditional exemptions under the FOI Act

Documents that fall within scope of your FOI request may be exempt from release under one or more of the conditional exemptions in the FOI Act. The documents below must be released unless the disclosure of the information it contains is, on balance, contrary to the public interest:

• Documents communicated in confidence to or from an authority of the Commonwealth or State government (section 47B)
• Documents containing deliberative matter (section 47C)
• Documents concerning certain operations of agencies (section 47E)
• Documents containing the personal information of another person (section 47F)
• Documents concerning a person’s business or professional affairs or an organisation’s business, commercial or financial affairs (section 47G)