76 Inspection by commissioner of documents from agency or Minister

(1) The commissioner may require an agency or Minister to produce a document for inspection for the purpose of enabling the commissioner to decide—

(a) whether the document is a document of the agency or an official document of the Minister; or

(b) whether the document falls within the terms of an application for access made under section 25; or

(c) whether the document is excluded from the application of the Act under section 11, 11A, 11B, 11C or 12 or another Act; or

Note—
Schedule 3 lists provisions of other Acts that exclude or limit the operation of this Act—see section 11D.

(d) whether the document is a document mentioned in section 11E; or

(e) whether the document is a document to which access may be refused under section 22; or

(f) whether the document is an exempt document or contains or comprises exempt matter; or

(g) whether, for the purposes of section 29B, the later application for access to the document has disclosed any reasonable basis for again seeking access to the document; or

(h) whether an application fee, processing charge or access charge is payable in relation to access to the document.

(2) The commissioner must do all things necessary to ensure a document produced under subsection (1)—

(a) is not disclosed to a person other than—

(i) a member of the staff of the commissioner in the course of performing duties as a member of the staff; or

(ii) a person who created the document or who provided the document or information in the document to the agency or Minister; or

(iii) if a person mentioned in subparagraph (ii) is a participant in the review—the participant’s representative; and

(b) is returned to the agency or Minister at the end of the review.