Jordan and Gold Coast City Council

Jordan and Gold Coast City Council
(2003 F0296, 11 August 2003) 

Extension of time application – Personal affairs. 

The applicant lodged an application for external review outside the prescribed 60 day time limit and sought an extension of time under s.73(1)(d) of the FOI Act.  Applying the principles stated in Young and Workers' Compensation Board of Qld (1994) 1 QAR 543, Assistant Commissioner Moss declined to grant the requested extension of time.  The relevant FOI access application sought access to parts of documents held by the respondent comprising an objection lodged by two third parties to a proposal to name a portion of parkland after the applicant, and which referred to other individuals who had supplied information to the third parties.

Applying the principles set out in Byrne and Gold Coast City Council (1994) 1 QAR 477, AC Moss found that the matter to which the applicant sought access was information concerning the personal affairs of the third parties and the other persons referred to in the objection. AC Moss noted that the applicant had been given access to the substance of the objection, and was satisfied that the disclosure of the parts of the documents in issue would not, on balance, be in the public interest.  AC Moss thus found that it would be futile to grant an extension of time as the matter in issue clearly qualified for exemption under s.44(1) of the FOI Act.