Application of section 47(3)(b) RTI Act
Section 47(3)(b) and section 49 allow access to be refused to information if it would, on balance, be contrary to the public interest to release. Determining this requires a decision maker to:
- identify and disregard any irrelevant factors (including those mentioned in schedule 4, part 1 of the RTI Act)
- identify any relevant public interest factors favouring disclosure (including those listed in schedule 4, part 2 of the RTI Act)
- identify any relevant public interest factors favouring nondisclosure of the information (including those listed in schedule 4, parts 3 and 4 of the RTI Act)
- balance the factors favouring disclosure against those favouring nondisclosure
- decide whether disclosing the information would, on balance, be contrary to the public interest.
Refer to How to balance the public interest for guidance on applying this section.
Public interest test in context
For information on applying the public interest factors in specific circumstances, refer to:
- Legal professional privilege, for applications for legal fees
- Access applications and third party personal information, for information provided by an applicant
- Applications for public service recruitment documents
- Administration of justice and legal remedies: Applying Willsford
- Applications for investigation, complaint and regulatory agency documents
- Applications for tender documents
- Deliberative process
- Access applications for workplace surveys
- Applications for medical records of the deceased; and
- other relevant decision making guidelines.
For information on how the public interest factors have previously been applied, the ‘Public interest test applied - factors’ part of this Annotation provides links to:
- decisions which have considered particular public interest factors listed in schedule 4; and
- FOI Act Annotations where FOI Act provisions operated in a similar way to the current RTI Act public interest factors.
Last updated: November 25, 2021
